If not an assassin, then what?
by Ignobilis
Summary: An alternate universe version of Ezio's story that's asks questions like - What if he was afraid of heights? What if he was terribly unfit? What if he was painfully shy and had "issues"? Would it have been better for him if he were "normal"?
1. Fall of the Eagle

_**Disclaimer:**I do not own Ezio or any other mentioned Assassin's Creed characters, they are the property of Ubisoft. As for the historical characters mentioned… well.. I guess they belong to history… or themselves…_

_**Author Notes:** I decided to come up with this fanfic on the spur of the moment. I guess I am wondering where Ezio's life would lead him if something happened in his growing up years that caused him to be a very different person… someone who wouldn't think about being an assassin or killing anyone… or causing undue violence._

_What would his life be like if he was "normal". Just like every other Average Joe on the street. I guess in part I am inspired a bit by M. Night Shyamalan's "Unbreakable" – What happens if a guy doesn't end up doing what he was meant to do? Would that be better or would that be his undoing?_

_Also… I'm wondering if I could come up with a more realistic assassin story…. I mean, usually an assassin that lets just about everyone know that he's an assassin… really doesn't live too long... and it seems like just about everybody in the games knows who Ezio is….:P I found that pretty incredulous._

_I'll stay away from any kind of Italian dialogue… as found in the games… I've never studied the language and am pretty unfamiliar with it._

_I might edit the story in the future to include some of it….if I can get a handle on this…_

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><p>It only took a split second, but time slowed to where Ezio could see his little fingers lose their grip of the stone ledge and he fell backwards. Arms flailing, he struggled to regain his grip on some other jutting piece of masonry, but to no avail. He landed flat on his back, his head snapped back and hit the ground hard.<p>

The world became black.

When he opened his eyes again, he felt a splitting pain at the back of his head. His brain felt woozy, like it had been rattled badly in the skull. There was a bandage on his head, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw his father at the doorway of the room talking to a man in the long robes of a physician, just without the bird-shaped mask.

There was a terribly serious and scary expression on his father's face.

He closed his eyes again, and lost consciousness for quite awhile, because when he awoke again, it was dark.

It didn't hurt as much now, but Ezio was still a bit shaken. He had fallen before, when competing with Federico to see who could climb up to the roof of their home. However, the falls were never really that bad because he was never able to get up too high on the wall and he had learned from Federico how to break his falls by rolling a bit and keeping his head towards his chest. A very young child, Ezio's muscles weren't as developed as his older brother's and thus far, he was only able to climb up a short distance on the wall using the protruding pieces of masonry.

However, today was different. Ezio turned eight, he was stronger now, and somehow he felt ready to make that long climb up to the roof.

"You can't make it, little brother," Federico called from the roof, looking downwards into the square courtyard of his home.

Ezio pouted, staring upwards at the dark-haired boy who stuck his tongue out at him. "I'm eight now!... Today! I'll show you how strong I am!"

With a running leap, he started scrambling up the wall. To Federico's amazement, his little brother was almost springing up the wall, like a spider along a web.

He was about to put his hand on the final ledge before the roof, when he slipped and fell.

The room seemed darker when Ezio recalled the slowing down of time and the moment that passed as he fell downwards.

A slight noise caused him to shift his attention to the door that was slightly ajar. Even though it was dark, he could see the faint glow of a light passing by the doorway. His keen eyes caught sight of a man with a lantern creeping quietly down the corridor.

"Papa?"

The light stopped. Paused for a moment.

"Papa?"

It never occurred to Ezio that it could be someone else. After all, Giovanni his father was the only grown man in the house.

There was a quick rustling of fabric and the light moved towards the door followed by an unfamiliar silhouette. Feeling a sense of unease, Ezio leaned back warily.

"Papa?" he worried voice was louder now.

There was a moment of relief when his father's face melted into view from the shadow.

"Why are you up at this time?" his father's voice was strangely harsh. "You need to rest."

"I can't sleep," Ezio pulled the sheets closer towards him. His father seemed very strange indeed. His hair was slightly tossed and he seemed to be wearing oddly-shaped white clothes. And there was a peculiar brownish stain on the sleeve of the arm that held the lantern.

"What's that?"

Ezio was pointing at the stain. The older Auditore quickly dropped the arm under the funny half-cloak that he was wearing on his left shoulder.

"Tha… " an awkward pause ensued before his father snapped back, "I don't want you competing with Federico in such dangerous games again, Ezio!"

"But…"

"No buts! You did a very foolish thing today!" His father really wasn't himself. It was almost as if Giovanni was possessed and hissing menacingly. "Don't you value your own life? Think about the pain you are causing your mother!"

Tears rimmed around Ezio's wide eyes. His lips started to tremble. His papa wasn't his papa. It was as though the night had taken Giovanni and warped him into some terrible demon.

"Get back to sleep." The older Auditore retreated towards the door.

Ezio looked at him, wide-eyed, almost hoping that his father would transform back into the mild-mannered banker that he had always known.

"I mean it!"

That last phrase ended with a quiet hiss, like a snake. And perhaps because of the dim light and long shadows, Ezio found himself staring into the grim eyes of a nocturnal predator. Fearful and shaken by the encounter, Ezio immediately turned his back towards his father, curled up tightly in his sheets and pretended to fall asleep. He forced himself to keep his eyes shut, until he heard the door close properly.

He didn't sleep a wink after that.

As Giovanni quietly pulled the door close, he paused for a moment, and glanced at the sleeping form of his young son. He realized a bit too late that in his desire to keep his secret secret, he had behaved rather foolishly and terrified, perhaps alienated his own son. He wanted to run in, pick his son up and hold him tightly, telling him that everything was okay and that stumbling, falling and getting hurt was part and parcel of life.

But Ezio was asleep.

Perhaps tomorrow, he thought. He would make up for the nastiness. He closed the door and headed to his secret sanctum behind the wall where he hid the other half of his double-life.

About half an hour later, before he could even change out into his normal clothes, a messenger from Lorenzo arrived bearing news of a sudden development. Giovanni ended up disappearing for 3 days on a mission.

For Ezio, it was the longest 3 days of his life. Despite his young age, he could tell that his mother's behaviour wasn't quite the same. He silently wondered if he had something to do with his father's disappearance. Perhaps he should not have asked his father about the odd stain. These and other thoughts weighed heavily on his mind, but he never breathed a word of it to anyone.


	2. Lost in Hell

_**Disclaimer:**I do not own Ezio or any other mentioned Assassin's Creed characters, they are the property of Ubisoft. As for the historical characters mentioned… well.. I guess they belong to history… or themselves…_

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><p>Ezio peeked quickly out of the side of his eye. The sky was a perfect blue above the tiled roofs of Florence, but he did not notice it. Although his back was firmly stuck to a dark corner in the interior of the church tower, the ground of the piazza outside the church loomed towards him like a monstrous wave and he felt his head go light.<p>

It had been two years since the day of his fall. There was some slight scarring at the back of his head from the incident, but otherwise there was no lasting damage, except for this. He soon found that he was unable to look downwards at anything from a certain height. It wasn't so bad in the first year, but grew progressively worse after he fell off a ladder in the kitchen. Although he wasn't hurt in that particular fall, it was so embarrassing that he told no one about it and his personal phobia regarding heights and falling grew.

"Come on Ezio… there's a ladder out here to the roof," Federico's head popped into view from the outside of one of the tower's gothic-style windows.

Ezio shook his head furiously. The lightness was so bad he almost felt like throwing up. Inching his way along the tower walls, he slowly made his way to the stairs where he descended to the cathedral below like an old man, tightly gripping the rails of the stairway.

After a long long spell, he made it to the bottom of the very long flight of stairs.

"You sure took your time," his older brother was standing at the open doorway of the cathedral.

Glum and frankly quite annoyed, he pushed past his brother into the busy piazza.

The streets were bustling with activity as Florence readied itself for a week-long festival that would carry on all day and into the night. A large array of vendors were setting up makeshift stalls and a significant number of minstrels and entertainers were either plying their trade around street corners and in various piazzas around the city or setting up small wooden stages were mystery plays commemorating the life of John the Baptist, the city's patron saint, were performed.

Ezio was in no mood for the festivities. This pathetic state that he was in wasn't how he had dreamed his life would be. His shoulders drooped low with the burden of his failures and it seemed every time he passed by a stall selling figurines of the saints, their painted eyes were mocking his cowardliness.

"Hey!"

"Hey there!"

Ezio only turned around when a hand fell on his shoulder and pulled it back. He spun around quickly and found himself staring into the ruddy face of a peasant woman with a large apron.

"What's wrong, child?"

Not knowing the strange woman who had stopped him, he mumbled something under his breath, shrugged the hand off his shoulder and started to move off.

"Here," a fluffy pastry dusted with fine sugar dropped into his hand.

Eyebrow raised, he looked up at the peasant lady who was arranging a checkered cloth over a basket of the same kind of pastries.

"Nothing bad lasts forever," the ruddy-faced woman leaned downwards, lifting his chin with a fleshy hand. "So keep your chin up and enjoy your life… you're too young to be walking around like an old man with a hump on his back."

He never saw the woman again, for she disappeared into the crowd, but he never forgot the taste of the sugared confection she had dropped into his hand.

His elder brother found him some time later sitting on a bench beside the street with a semi sugar-powdered face.

"There you are!" his brother pulled at one of Ezio's sticky hands. "Come on, everyone's waiting for us!"

Ezio was dragged halfway across Florence to a part of the city that had a lot of older buildings. A large group of children waited for them to join in a game of hide and seek. As soon as they determined which child was going to be doing the seeking, everyone quickly scattered in different directions.

"Pssst… up here brother," Federico had found a hiding spot somewhere up on a strip of narrow roofing between the first and second floor of an old house. He reached out to his brother below, "Quick, give me your hand!"

Ezio grabbed his brother's hand and tried to pull himself up the broken masonry of a crumbling wall that was beside the building. However, his fear of heights and falling combined with a lack of practice in climbing in general made it very difficult for him to get up onto the roofing. As a result, he kept slipping on the crumbly stone. Federico pulled as hard as he could, but was unable to lift his brother up.

"I'll find another hiding spot," Ezio let go of the hand and quickly ran down a short alleyway that led him to a rather overgrown garden. Running down the garden path, he came to a stone doorway barred by two, heavy metal doors. He noticed that they were slightly ajar.

He quickly slipped through the narrow gap. Beyond, he could only make out the faint outline of cobwebs strung across an infinite expanse of gloominess. Holding onto the metal ring of the ajar door, he peeked out of the gap to see if anyone had followed him to his hiding place.

Suddenly, he heard a kind of sucking sound, there was the sensation of air rushing out of the gap and the door slammed shut! Panicking, Ezio pulled at the metal ring with all his might, but was unable to budge the heavy door. Anxiety and fear started to well up in his stomach as he began to realize he was stuck in a dark, dark place. Turning around, he could barely make out the faint outline of pillars and blockish stones of the walls.

Pulling furiously at the ring, and later pushing against the door, he found that he was far too weak to move it. After a lot of huffing and sweating, he finally yelled at the top of his lungs.

"HELP!"

"Federico, help! I'm in here!"

He must have screamed for quite a long time, but no one came to his aid. Finally, feeling hoarse and a little desperate, he wondered if there was another way out of this strange stone maze. He had heard from some of the children that it was some sort of old burial area and that it extended far underground and sometimes the passages opened up into crumbling tunnels that led into and outside of the city.

It was some time in the early evening and sunlight still flooded into the tunnels though cracks in the masonry. However, these gaps and holes were usually found high up on the dome-like ceiling and quite unreachable for the height-phobic Ezio.

Knowing that it would soon get dark, and not wanting to spend the night in this horrible place, Ezio quickly made his way to the nearest flight of stone stairs and descended into a dusty labyrinth filled with old bones, crumbling stone and some resplendent-looking sarcophagi. Although his heart was pounding like a hammer, he made his way as quickly as he could around the winding corridors, avoiding the bones and sarcophagi as much as he could.

Getting out of this massive mausoleum was quite a challenge as many of the corridors and pathways led to crumbled bridges and broken stairways. Rubble and dead-end pathways often meant that he had to turn around and find his way out another way. And all too soon, the light slowly faded into pitch black darkness.

Standing on a landing somewhere in the upper floors, he watched in terror as the light from a gap in the ceiling turned a dusky red and then faded to grey and eventually, nothing. As the darkness creped in from all sides, a nasty, all-consuming fear welled up from inside. Sweat beaded up on his brow as his eyes shifted around quickly, searching the darkness. The shadows took on strange shapes and it seemed there were strange flitting figures racing through the darkness just at the corner of his eye.

Out of intense fear, a kind of mad desperation was born. A slight burning sensation raced up his back, over his head and caused his eyes to smart. Ezio blinked back hot tears, and saw an eldritch, blue light flicker at the edge of his vision. Then, in an explosion of colour and a rush of a kind of static, the pitch blackness of the mausoleum was awash with a kind of strange, dim, bluish-grey light. This light outlined every arch and pillar and some of the stones on the walls.

Screaming in terror, Ezio ran madly through this eerie world. His mind constantly bombarded by thoughts of monsters chasing him, of damnation and of the devil trapping him like a spider in this horrible, nightmarish world.

He ran and ran … until his foot hit a stone and he found himself lunging forward onto a flagstone pavement covered by the dust of ages. Coughing loudly as the stirred dust entered his nostrils, he looked up into what appeared to be a sparkling, arched doorway, outlined in a whitish glow on an otherwise blank wall.

Although he was still somewhat panicking, Ezio got up quickly from the floor and placed his hands on the sparkling doorway. It was the one not-so-scary thing that he had encountered this entire nightmarish evening. The wall was cold and dusty and despite running his fingers around the edges of the doorway, he could not feel any sort of indentation.

Eventually, his fingers ran over a bump on the otherwise even wall. Looking under his fingers, he saw a protruding piece of masonry that seemed to sparkle more than the other stones on the wall. Instinctively, he ran his palm over the bump and pushed against it. There was a distant sound of moving metal parts and then the "doorway" swung outwards!

Suddenly, as soon as it had appeared, the eerie-lighted scene vanished. The little boy found himself staring down a long, dark, unlighted corridor. The shock of having the entire wall move away from him soon transformed into a new fear - of being completely swallowed by the lightless darkness.

Then, at the moment when he felt that he might just curl up onto a screaming ball, Ezio saw the faint glimmer of moonlight at the end of the tunnel. Crying uncontrollably and running as fast as he could, the little boy tore through the corridor at breakneck speed. As he neared the exit where moonlight streamed through a circular opening into the city street, he saw the multiple faint glows of a bunch of torches held by a small group of men who were disappearing down a sharp angled corner of the street.

"H- help!" he choked. The tears strangled his hoarse voice as he ran after the group.

Fortunately for Ezio, an observant man at the end of the group spotted him. There were shouts of relief and much to the little boy's surprise; he saw the familiar face of his father emerge from behind the men.

Fearing a reprimand from his father, Ezio held back a little, but found himself wrapped up in the embrace of two strong arms. He buried his face into his father's neck and allowed his tears to flow freely.

He never noticed that most of the men in the group appeared to be of the somewhat unsavory sort.

Picking up his son in a single sweep of his arms, Giovanni held the little boy close. The relief he felt was immeasurable. When Federico returned alone after having lost Ezio, he immediately alerted his network of "friends" who formed search parties to comb the city.

However, his relief soon turned into concern. Ezio was shaking uncontrollably.

"Ezio, what's the matter?" he stoked the boy's hair and tried to get his son to look at him.

Ezio merely clung tighter to his father, shaking his head furiously, he kept his tearing face firmly against the velvet collar of his father's long coat.


	3. Fear of the Dark

_**Disclaimer:**I do not own Ezio or any other mentioned Assassin's Creed characters, they are the property of Ubisoft. As for the historical characters mentioned… well.. I guess they belong to history… or themselves…_

_**Glossary:**_  
><em>Bocconotti – a pastry that has many variants. In this story, it's the standard cream puff.<em>

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><p>It had been 3 years since the day he ran screaming from the mausoleum. It was a sort of blessing in disguise; a perceivable distance had been growing between him and his father since Giovanni lashed out at him for falling and hurting his head. He started to wonder if his father liked him less than his other siblings, and as a result, stopped actually saying anything of note to his father.<p>

However, the father-son relationship seemed to have mended somewhat when he ran straight from that terrifying place into the safety of his father's arms. That was a moment he never forgot, even when he got a lot older. The look of worry and relief in his father's face was all that Ezio needed to convince him that he was still… significant … in his father's eyes.

He never wanted that feeling to go away.

Which was why he never mentioned that the absolute darkness of the crypt blazed with that eerie light… an eerie light that apparently, only he could see. At first, he thought that the strange luminescence was a phenomenon that he would never experience again. However, he started seeing it more and more frequently. Often, he would be walking along a street, sometimes even in the daytime, and all of a sudden, it was as if a black veil was thrown over everything and certain people started glowing in strange colours.

Frankly, Ezio was terrified at what he saw. He particularly hated it when the strange vision popped up at night. The first time it happened in his bedroom, he had to bite his own lip to stop himself from screaming. He also started to become fearful of the darkness - of night. Sleeping in a darkened room became a terrible ordeal. Somehow, the shadows would form into the horrible shapes of demons that chased him around the subterranean world of the crypt.

After a few months of yawning and falling asleep at the breakfast table, Ezio finally stumbled upon a solution. He would keep a lighted candle by his bed to help him fall asleep. Somehow the strange dark sight didn't occur as much if he had a bright candle by his nightstand.

This would have worked out fine, if he was able to keep his secret completely hidden.

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><p>The fireplace, now unlit in the daytime slid open and Giovanni emerged from the secret room behind the brick wall. He was startled by the elegant figure of his wife standing in front of it, waiting for him to emerge.<p>

"He nearly burnt down the bedroom this time," Maria was worried and slightly furious.

"Is he- ?"

"Ezio's safe," his mother replied. "Speak with him Giovanni, he needs you."

Giovanni sighed, "Ezio will get over this. Most young children usually overcome their fear of the night."

"Your son's THIRTEEN."

"But what's there to be said? - 'Son, don't be afraid of the darkness?' " the words rolled awkwardly off his lips. "No one in my family has ever had a problem … like this."

Frankly, it was downright embarrassing. Although Giovanni didn't utter the words, his eyes said it all.

"There is something wrong with him, Giovanni," Maria pleaded. "Something must have happened down in that awful crypt, but he won't tell me what it is."

Giovanni rubbed his temples, "but you're his mothe- "

"You HAVE to talk to YOUR SON," she sounded quite firm. "Maybe he might tell you what he's hiding… since you BOTH like to keep your secrets!"

Giovanni glared at his wife, but only for a brief moment before turning away. He knew better than to cross her when she had a firm view about something. Although they shared a strong bond, he sometimes wondered if she had second thoughts about being with him, a part of his unique family.

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><p>He waited till the boys were done having lessons with their tutor. Watching them in their daily class from beyond a slightly open doorway, he began to notice that Ezio was starting to look less and less like a male scion of his family. Only thirteen, he looked twice his age, almost like a miniature version of Giovanni, in a long velvet coat with a high ruffled collar and a soft hat… and a similar hairstyle with hair that touched his shoulders and covered half his face, whenever he looked down… and Ezio stared at the floor… a lot.<p>

The tutor however, was full of praise for his younger son. Ezio was diligent in his studies and intelligent.

"I predict he would make a most accomplished banker," the tutor remarked.

Giovanni winced. He was actually glad that he never told either of his sons about their true legacy. If either one of them found out about it, the other would soon be informed. Federico would someday find out from him about the "family business", but that would have to be a day when his eldest could keep a secret, even from his younger brother.

Almost the exact opposite of his brother, Ezio looked very pale, and quite soft, without an ounce of discernable muscle (not that there was anything discernable under that large, shapeless coat he wore.) and quite frankly, Giovanni suspected that he was probably going to grow into a short and rather plump man. (He just didn't look as tall as Federico.)

Just like a Florentine banker.

Giovanni sighed. It would be the first time that his family had only one male assassin in a single generation. His brother had no children, and neither Ezio nor Petruccio were in any physical condition to inherit his mantle.

"Ezio, come here." he managed to catch hold of Ezio after the class, before both boys ran off to play with their friends.

Ezio shuffled slowly towards his father, his shoulders stooped as though he was carrying the weight of the ages, and his gaze firmly fixed on the ground in front of him. His hands were cold and shaking a little, but he kept them in the pockets of his coat. His father gestured for Ezio to sit beside him on a couch in the office where Giovanni conducted most of his daytime banking affairs.

"Ezio, your mother and I are very worried about you," Ezio never lifted his gaze from the floor as his father continued.

"I know, papa."

"If there is anything.. anything at all that is troubling you… please … tell us… tell me," he reached out for his son's shoulder. "What's wrong, Ezio?"

Silence. There was no response from his son, save for the slight twitching of his lip.

"Son, we love you very much."

Ezio lifted his head. His eyes were bright with unshed tears.

"Papa –"

More than anything, Ezio wanted to tell his father about his fears and about the strange visions he had been having. But he could not. Basking in the glow of his father's love, he didn't want this moment to go away, if his father knew about his freakish sight, he would never look at Ezio the same way ever again.

Unable to bear the burden of speaking the truth, Ezio rushed out of the study as fast as he could. So fast, it caught Giovanni by surprise and he lost Ezio as the boy raced out into the crowded Florentine streets.

Despite his network of "friends" throughout the city, for once, Giovanni had absolutely no idea where his second son went. Or in fact, where Ezio kept disappearing to in the middle of the day. It seemed the boy had a natural talent for vanishing into the crowd. Although it was just as likely that an unremarkable individual who constantly walked with stooped shoulders would be a lot harder to pick out in a crowd than a tall boy striding through the throng with a confident air.

Actually the first place that the thirteen-year-old made a stop at was a store in the marketplace that sold Bocconotti. He didn't quite remember when he developed a penchant for the fluffy, sugar-dusted pastry, but they always made him feel better, especially if he helped himself to a bag of freshly baked puffs.

As the day wore on, Ezio ended up wandering around the city streets till the early evening. He didn't notice that the sun was dipping and soon it would be dark – the time of his worst fears. He was deep in thought, his little mind churning up as many solutions as he could. Candles weren't the solution; he would only end up burning down his bedroom again, or even worse, the family home. Ezio had to find someway to keep a light in his room without endangering everyone in the house.

It was nearly nightfall when he chanced upon a dark-skinned, foreign merchant selling lamps made of brightly-coloured glass. The lamps were larger than the normal ones that were available in many other stalls, and some of them consisted of a cage of wrought iron with jewel-like windows.

Ezio surmised that the sturdy iron cage and glass might help keep the fire inside and away from his bed sheets and the wooden furniture while providing light. A safer alternative than the naked candles he had been using before. Although they were quite expensive, he managed to get a decent-sized lamp from the merchant.

The streets were dark when he started to head back home. Fearful of the strange shadows that seemed to reach out with murky tentacles from the corners of buildings, Ezio found himself running quickly to get home (or at least running as fast as he could, stopping frequently to catch his breath. He really couldn't sustain a run for any decent length of time.) However, carrying a heavy lantern while running on cobbled streets, it was only a matter of time before he stumbled on the uneven stone.

He managed to slow his fall enough so that his precious lantern survived undamaged. As he struggled to get up, the shadows of the night that he was running away from seemed to loom ever larger over him, as if the monsters that he feared were somehow catching up with him. Then suddenly, without warning, his vision shifted and the world was plunged into the eerie blackness of his dreaded "sight". Gasping for air and tearing up in fear, Ezio stumbled to a wall with reticulated windows. Before stumbling on the uneven cobblestone, he had noticed some light coming out from the delicately interlaced panels of those windows. Looking into them, he hoped that a brief glimpse of some kind of light would dispel the gloomy veil caused by the "sight".

The shock of staring directly into a brightly lit lamp did jolt Ezio's vision back to normal, but he almost wished it never happened. For in the same instance, he found himself staring into the faces of two young men who were grapping each other ( without much of their clothes ) in a rather strange position.

There was a shot, tense silence as the couple stared at the boy and then they all screamed. The noise and confusion soon attracted a small group of men who were carrying torches. There was a lot of shouting, and in the commotion, Ezio spotted one of the half-dressed young men leaping out of an open window. Sensing that he had caused some kind of trouble, the boy ran away from the scene as fast as he could, turning through many small streets, till he started to wheeze and cough because of the tightness building up in his chest. Knowing that he could not keep it up much longer, he jumped into a large pile of hay (it seemed the natural thing to do) and kept as quiet as he could.

Ezio peeked out of the hay pile only when he could no longer hear the voices of the men with torches.

"God in heaven, who are you?"

The voice was right beside him. Ezio turned his head in shock. A young man with tan-coloured hair and the scant beginnings of a beard growing from his chin sat up in the hay beside him. The boy immediately recognized him as one of the two he had seen earlier in the strange position.

Although his mother frequently reminded him not to talk to strangers, Ezio found the handsome face of this young fellow rather likeable.

"Ezio. And you?"

The young man's mouth fell open in surprise. Then he chuckled.

"Leonardo."

"Why are those men chasing you?"

For the second time in a single night, the young man who called himself "Leonardo" found himself gaping like a goldfish and then closed his mouth again without saying a single word.

After a significant pause, he remarked, "Aren't you supposed to be home in bed?"

Before Ezio could make any kind of reply to the question, the group of men that they had both tried to avoid, converged on the hay pile. Despite a desperate attempt to make a dash for freedom, the grown men were quicker than he was and managed to wrestle Ezio to the ground before dragging them both off to the Office of the Night.


	4. Unnatural Acts

_**Disclaimer:**I do not own Ezio or any other mentioned Assassin's Creed characters, they are the property of Ubisoft. As for the historical characters mentioned… well.. I guess they belong to history… or themselves…_

_To answer an observation posed by a reviewer… "Would Ezio be too young to be arrested by the Office of the Night?"_

_Answer:_  
><em>If there were such an office today, probably…. And Ezio would be regarded as a victim instead of a participant.<em>  
><em>in the 1400s? Maybe not.<em>  
><em>Why? In medieval times… and even up to the 1600s, the legal age of marriage was about 14 for boys and 12 for girls.<em>  
><em>Although there is historical evidence that people in the renaissance Florence did marry later than was the norm for the rest of Europe, I would think that at 13, most boys would be regarded as a step away from becoming recognised as grown men.<em>

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><p>Ezio later heard from Federico that his mother fainted when officials from the Office of the Night showed up at the doorstep of the Auditore home.<p>

Soon after he and Leonardo were dragged off by a group that consisted of armed men and what appeared to be several priests to a grey stone building that was well-lit late into the night, the tan-haired young man was led away to be questioned individually. Although he was not in the same room when with Leonardo and his interrogators, some of the conversation was so loud he could make out what they were saying from his nearby cell.

"We KNOW that you… and another … would be found committing the "unspeakable act" …" this voice sounded pretty intimidating.

"Who's the bastard who gave you my name? I demand to see my accuser!" Leonardo protested.

"So you admit to the "act"?"

"No! I admit to nothing!" the young man exclaimed.

"IS… this Ezio Auditore your intended … partner?"

"I have NO IDEA who he IS!" Leonardo exploded again.

"And WHY… would someone his age be out at such a late hour… on the city streets…hmmmm?" this other person had a voice that sounded a bit like a hissing snake. "Perhaps you prefer them… young…"

"Ezio is almost a man!"

"So you KNOW him!" the hissing voice accused.

"NO I DO NOT!" Leonardo sounded pretty exasperated at this point. "I have never seen him before tonight…"

"Are you SURE?" the hissing voice was getting to be pretty annoying.

"How DARE you doubt my…."

The other interrogator interjected, "Signor! YOUR NAME has come up quite a few times… mentioned… by various parties in cases that we handle here… you can see why we have problems accepting the truth of what you say…"

There was quite a bit of ruckus after that. However, Ezio had little time to focus on what they were actually saying as he was taken out of the cell by a guard. Apparently, his father arrived at the Office in a huge huff. To Ezio's amazement, the older Auditore seemed to have completely dropped his mild-mannered demeanor when dealing with the officials of the Office.

"He is simply too young to be of… that persuasion!" his father insisted, after giving Ezio a glare that would have cowed a grown man.

Despite his father's best efforts, they led Ezio to a small room where two somberly-dressed officials grilled him repeatedly about Leonardo and asked all kinds of odd questions their "relationship". One of the questioners had a sour expression, almost as if he had swallowed a lemon just moments before. The other seemed to resemble his father a bit. They did not allow his father to speak directly to him and through the closed door he could hear Giovanni arguing with the officials outside.

He was sure Leonardo was getting the same treatment in another room. He had absolutely no idea what the whole fuss was about. He didn't know the tan-haired young man, except for the fact that they had "met at the hay pile" and could not explain why he was out so late except to say that he had "gotten lost".

"But how did you know to meet your partner at this hay pile?" the sour man leaned over and practically stared down Ezio.

"I don't know... we just met!" the boy stubbornly insisted. Which was really the truth, but the officials who questioned him didn't seem to believe him.

"We are not really against you," the fatherly questioner seemed to be trying to calm tensions in the room. "We just want to know what you know about this Leonardo fellow…"

"I don't know anything about him!"

"But the guard who brought you here noted that you and he were… "chatting like friends", " despite the comforting demeanor, something inside the boy cautioned him against revealing too much to the fatherly man.

"The guard is a liar!" Ezio spat.

The sour man now moved closer the pair, almost pushing aside the other questioner, "Enough with your defiance! Tell us what we want to know!"

"Matteo…" the fatherly man tried to calm his associate.

The one called Matteo glared menacingly at Ezio, "Did he enter you from…"

Before the question could be completed by the sour-as-a-lemon Matteo, his father practically burst into the room, shouting into the faces of both interrogators, demanding the release of his son. The rest of the night was quite a blur for Ezio. He only remembered that there was a short scuffle between his father and the officials and that after everyone calmed down, the men at the Office of the Night had a long talk with his father. By daybreak, he was sent back home with a stern warning about not engaging in "unnatural acts". Ezio guessed that this Leonardo must have been part of a crime, and that they were both set free because the Office was unable to prove that the "act" had taken place.

On the way back, Ezio kept his gaze firmly on the cobblestone street. He was too afraid to look into his father's face much less ask his father if he could go back to the hay pile to retrieve the lamp he had lost during the scuffle. Giovanni appeared grim and somewhat distant. They did not speak to each other until after lunch, when he was able to clean up and get a bit of rest.

Ironically, they were right back at his father's study at almost the same time yesterday when he ran off into the streets to find a solution to his night time terror.

"Ezio, do you know this … Leonardo.. person?"

"No, papa - "

"Is there ANYTHING that you want to tell me… about last night?"

There was a significant pause from the boy, before he reluctantly whispered, "No, papa."

"Son, you know you can tell me anything… if … if this… Leonardo… made you do anything that you did not want to… please, Ezio, you have to tell me," there was a genuine look of worry and concern in his father's eyes as he leaned down and put his hands on the boy's shoulders.

"Nothing happened, papa," he protested, eyes tearing up. "I didn't do anything wrong, I swear!"

There was a tense silence when father and son stared each other in the face.

"Why is everyone so angry?" the boy was trying very hard not to shed tears. Giovanni hugged his son, and prayed hard that all this fears were unfounded.

* * *

><p>Ezio felt that he was being watched. At times, while walking around Florence, he noticed men, in groups of twos or threes following him. In general, they looked like thugs or some other type of lowlife. Sometimes they were accompanied by a "lady of the night" - a courtesan. Once or twice when he turned back to take a better look at them, they either disappeared or pretended not to look at him.<p>

At first, he tried to lose them in the city crowds, but they were pretty good at keeping him in their sights. Sometimes, while strolling around the streets, he would suddenly break into a run and race through a maze of alleyways, hoping to throw them off his tail, but they were always somehow able to relocate him. He also noticed that Federico started spending more time with him. His older brother was well into his late teens and spent more time with his own friends and a never-ending strew of female admirers. The brothers drifted apart slowly over the years. Ezio could not remember when it began happening. He just noticed that Federico continued growing taller, stronger and faster, so that he was no longer able to keep up with his brother, especially when Federico ran over the city's rooftops. And over time, Federico found his own friends and stopped hanging around with his younger brother… that is, until quite recently.

The thirteen-year-old guessed that the recent change in his brother's habits had something to do with his father.

"You don't really need to follow me around," he grumbled to his brother as they were walking towards the marketplace.

"What makes you think that I'm following you?" Federico laughed. "Maybe it's you who are following me!"

"I'm not stupid you know." he scowled.

"Father's just really worried..."

"And how come he never worries about you?" Ezio shot back.

At that moment, he caught sight of some of the familiar unsavory men watching them from a street corner. Growling in annoyance, he stormed over to them.

"Who on earth ARE you people?" he yelled loudly.

Despite the obvious outburst, the men at the street corner pretended that they didn't hear him.

"What's going on, brother?" Federico stepped forward, putting himself in front of his little brother.

"These thugs have been following me around!"

What ensued was a shouting match between Federico and the two men at the street corner. In the midst of the chaos, Ezio took the opportunity to slip away. He really didn't want anyone following him around... or worse, "babysitting" him. He enjoyed the freedom he used to have roaming the streets. Prodding along in the crowds, he could melt into the throng, become anonymous. No one would be staring at him, or asking him questions he didn't want to answer. Most of all, as an insignificant face in a sea of faces, he could exist in a space where no one expected or demanded anything from him. He could be alone with his thoughts, away from his own inquiring family.

"Ezio?"

Ezio looked in the direction of the unfamiliar voice. A short distance away, a rather handsome young man dressed in a smallish, red cape beckoned to him.

It took Ezio a moment to recall the face of the man he had met at the hay pile that awful night. He wondered if it might be a good idea to run away, back to Federico. After all, this Leonardo character didn't seem to be on favorable terms with the authorities.

"Uh… Leonardo, is it?"

"I've been looking for you since… that night. If you'll follow me, I've got something that I believe belongs to you."

Despite the misgivings Ezio was feeling, there was indeed something attractive about this young man. And probably because of the annoyance he felt regarding his brother and everything else he decided to throw caution to the wind. Much to Ezio's relief, they ended up at a workshop with a lot of unfinished paintings instead of some dark alleyway.

"No one's here now right now," the tan-haired young man gestured at the empty studio. "They're all probably having lunch."

Leonardo went over to a workbench and dug around the boxes underneath it before pulling out the iron and glass lamp that Ezio had bought from the strange foreign merchant.

"I saw this on the hay pile while walking back here," he handed it over to the thirteen-year-old. "It seemed much too nice to be something left by the guard, so I assumed it must be yours."

Ezio gazed upwards into the face of the tan-haired young man, his eyes beamed with gratitude.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Leonardo gave Ezio a sidelong glance, laughed and scratched his head, "I am amazed that a lamp could be so important… I'm almost tempted to ask… 'Why?'"

The thirteen-year-old grew silent. The "Why?" was something he could not answer, he had to redirect the line of questioning.

"Are you a bad man?"

"I don't think I am," Leonardo smiled.

"So…. So why were the guards and priests chasing after you … you know… on the night we met."

There was an uncomfortable pause before the young man replied, "I wish I had a simple answer for you, my friend."


	5. The Devil's Sight

_**Disclaimer: **I do not own Ezio or any other mentioned Assassin's Creed characters, they are the property of Ubisoft. As for the historical characters mentioned… well.. I guess they belong to history… or themselves…_

_**Glossary:**_

_Condottiero - mercenary soldier leaders (or warlords) of the professional, military free companies contracted by the Italian city-states and the Papacy, from the late Middle Ages and throughout the Renaissance._

_Zingaro - gypsy_

* * *

><p>Leonardo never really explained to Ezio the reason for their arrest by the Office of the Night. However, it didn't really take the youth too long to figure out everything with some help from his brother, who brought him around to a brothel to illustrate the difference between "various types of love"… as Federico put it. Soon after that eye-popping visit to a bordello, his father sat him down for a long talk about the importance of following "the natural way of things". However, it sounded a lot like a lesson by his tutor, especially when the man was having a very bad day. Moreover, there was a pretty scary expression on Giovanni's face during the "talk", which made Ezio keep his eyes firmly peeled to the ground, because his father looked as if he was killing giants.<p>

Despite knowing "the truth" at least in the point of view of his family, Ezio kept visiting Leonardo at his workplace in the middle of the day. At first it was a workshop owned by a local master artist, and then soon after Leonardo himself set up his own place at a location near the Auditore home. Although Ezio was very careful when making his way to his friend's workshop, after about a week or so, his father somehow found out that he was seeing the young artist.

"Ezio, I want you to stop seeing that artist."

Giovanni managed to corner Ezio before he slipped out of the house. Despite his father's rather stern and scary tone, Ezio still managed a "Why papa?"

"He is a very bad person."

"No he isn't!" Ezio retorted.

Giovanni was a little taken aback by his son's reply. Ezio was normally the more "obedient" of his two older sons.

"Ezio, there are things about this Leonardo that you do not yet fully understand… he is trouble and he will get you into trouble if you keep hanging around him."

"I… I'm not a fool!" Ezio nearly stomped his foot. He did not like the way his father spoke to him, of late he was starting to feel that his father probably loved and trusted Federico more. "They don't like him because he likes men! What's wrong with liking to be… to be with a man instead of a woman?"

In truth, Giovanni had no good answer for that question. At least, no answer that he personally believed in. The creed of his family, the creed he was raised with reminded him that "Nothing is true; everything is permitted…." That statement nagged him since the day he brought Ezio back from the Office of the Night. However, being a man of his time, Giovanni found himself at odds with the creed he had sworn to heed so many years ago. He had no personal grudge against sodomites, in fact, he was sure some of them were pretty decent individuals… But no son of his was ever going to be one.

"Ezio! Stop seeing Leonardo… or else…"

Ezio never did hear the end of that sentence. He ran out of his father's study and out of the house as fast as he could. And for the second time that day that Giovanni found himself dumbfounded by his awkward second son. The boy ran so fast on his plump little legs that the older Auditore found it impossible to keep up with him.

At first, Giovanni was sure that his son would return home come dinnertime, but when that didn't happen. He went over to the studio where Leonardo worked and ended up arguing with the artist. When it was obvious that Ezio was not there, he had his network of contacts search the entire city. Amazingly, they were spectacularly unsuccessful. Ezio had apparently disappeared from the face of the earth. Giovanni only managed to catch a hold of him when sometime on the third day, the boy tried sneaking into the kitchen to find food. In a moment of anger spurred by his son's outright defiance, the older Auditore locked the boy in his room. He only let Ezio out after Maria convinced him that if he didn't try patching up his relationship with his second son, they might soon end up with one less child in the house.

Ezio's relationship with his father was never quite the same after that incident. His father became cold and distant and spoke to him only formally. They never discussed the topic of Leonardo ever again, and Ezio continued to visit his artist friend. Over time, he enjoyed hanging around the fascinating studio so much that he even started learning how to sketch. Despite his eagerness at learning something completely different from his usual studies, it was quite obvious from the start that art was something Ezio had little talent in. Nevertheless, he kept drawing and even painting because it was something he could share with Leonardo and because he found that he truly enjoyed it, especially when he felt depressed. And his life got more depressing the older he grew.

By the time he was 16, Ezio found himself staring into the mirror, wondering how he managed to grow old so fast. Whenever he was out with Federico, people would mistake him for his brother's uncle. Perhaps it had something to do with the clothes he wore, his puffy cheeks or plump appearance. Or perhaps it was the defeated expression he wore on his face when he prodded along, constantly keeping his eyes on the ground ahead of him. With his head perpetually dipped downwards and a permanent droop in his shoulders, he appeared a lot shorter than he actually was.

Leonardo on the other hand, cut an impressive figure. A fairly tall man with good features, he frequently caught the attention of many of Florence's young ladies, although he never returned any of their affections. However, the one thing that Ezio admired about his friend was the artist's gentle spirit. He would never hurt any living thing, no matter if said living thing threatened violence against him. There were certain city guards that frequently worked with the Office of the Night who liked to heckle the artist when they bumped into each other on the street. Once or twice when they managed to corner him near a lonely alleyway, they would attempt to give him a quick beating. Thankfully, the artist was much tougher than he appeared and never sustained any serious injury.

"Why don't you fight back?" Ezio once quizzed him after yet another unfortunate run in with the guards.

Leonardo shrugged, "What good would that do? It would just give them an excuse to put me behind bars for a day or two… such a waste of time…" He reached into a birdcage that held a dove he had just purchased and lifted the creature out gently. Raising his hand to the endless sky, his face widened into an ecstatic smile when the bird leapt from his hand and took flight.

"But you COULD… you know… you could have bested all of them," Ezio muttered, glancing sideways to observe his friend's reaction.

Leonardo laughed. "I suppose if I had learned the ways of the condottieri when I was younger, I might do that… but Fate and God have chosen this path of peace for me and I think that it suits me rather well…"

"Well, I think you would have made a great condottiero."

Leonardo laughed so hard that he nearly dropped the birdcage on the flagstones.

"Well, it IS true," his young friend protested.

If there was anyone who was more than he appeared, it certainly had to be Leonardo da Vinci. Despite having the fine, soft fingers and hands of an artist, he was very well built and stronger than most men that Ezio ever met, including his brother Federico. Frequently, after a few drinks at a local tavern, the pair would make bets with some of the clientele, pitting Leonardo in an arm wrestling match against some larger fellow. Thus far, few could actually beat the artist at this game. A variation of that would be to see how many iron horseshoes the artist and his challenger could bend in a minute. Often, while the other fellow was struggling with a single horseshoe, Leonardo would have already bent quite a few, as though they were made of soft lead.

There were times Ezio quietly envied his friend's looks and strength. There was something about Leonardo that made him feel lost and a bit sad, as if he were looking at a shadow of what could be. He wondered if beauty, physical stature and strength were indeed gifts that only providence could bestow on a man. He wondered if it were possible to have the same gifts as his friend. However, he banished these thoughts as soon as they entered his mind. The mere daydream of how his life would be different if he had some of his friend's, or even his brother's physical gifts, was almost too painful for him to endure.

So he resigned himself to his fate. Often while out drinking with Leonardo, he would mockingly refer to himself as "the fat Florentine banker".

* * *

><p>It was almost evening during the week long feast of John the Baptist. This was the one week where the markets and streets of Florence bristled with activity from sun up till sundown throughout all 7 days. Ezio never really enjoyed this particular festival. Six years ago on the same day, he was trapped in the mausoleum and was cursed with his "sight". To help lighten the depressive mood, he made it a point to spend the entire day wandering from tavern to tavern ensuring he was never sober enough to think about the miserable morass that his life had sunk to.<p>

By the evening of his annual "day of depression", he was slumped at the corner of a street, having thrown up numerous times since the morning and feeling as if his head had split in two. Fortunately, he had thrown up so much that he was unable to force down another gulp of alcohol and was actually sober enough again to recognize his friend when Leonardo came running up to him and tried to help him to his feet.

"You've had quite enough today... time to go back."

Shoving his friend's arm away, the young man practically yelled into the artist's face, "I don't want to go home!"

The pair collapsed into a tangle of legs and arms when Ezio's rubbery legs gave way and they sprawled onto the cobblestone street. Like an echo through a misty tunnel, Ezio was vaguely aware of the voices of children laughing nearby. He tried to get onto his feet, but was only able to balance himself on his hands and knees when he spotted a pair of beaded shoes as he lifted his face off the ground.

"Fortunes… signor? Cross my palm with silver to know your Fate…."

Through a groggy haze of sound and colour, Ezio saw Leonardo shooing away the dark-skinned woman who had stretched out one rough, bangled hand towards him. He was surprised that the gypsy woman managed to get past the city guards and enter Florence. Gypsies were generally unwelcome in the towns and cities.

"No, we don't want anything," Leonardo was pulling at Ezio's arm, trying to drag him away from the old gypsy woman who was wrapped up in colourful shawls.

"I'm not talking to you, maestro!" she pointed a craggy finger at Ezio. "I'm talking to him!"

Red in the face and feeling annoyed because of his splitting headache, he yelled at the old gypsy woman, "I KNOW my Fate, zingaro! I don't need to pay some thief to tell me about… MY LIFE!"

The shawl-covered bohemian glared at him and then shouted at the top of her voice.

"HE HAS THE DEVIL'S SIGHT! HE CAN SEE IN THE DARKEST NIGHT!"

Leonardo practically lifted Ezio off his feet and tried to drag him away from the shouting woman. But amazingly, she followed them, shouting at the top of her voice.

"DEVIL-BORN KILLER! SON OF A MURDERER!"

She made such a ruckus that it attracted the attention of some passing city guards. In order to avoid more trouble, Leonardo quickly shoved some money into her hands whispering, "Here, go away!"

"If you are truly his friend, maestro, hear what I have to say," she tugged hard at the artist's free arm.

Because the city guards were pushing through the crowds to get to the trio, Leonardo allowed himself to be pulled down a narrowed side alley by the determined gypsy. They moved through a maze of small streets before going through an ancient arched doorway into a crumbling courtyard where several fairly unsavory characters hung round a small makeshift table playing cards. The old woman stomped up to the table and scattered the group with shouts in a foreign tongue, which the artist guessed was probably the language of her people. She made the artist and his semi-sober friend sit at the table before pulling out a cup and plonking it in front of Ezio.

She disappeared for a few moments and returned with a small clay jug from which wafted an odd, vaguely herbal smell. Pouring out the contents into the cup, she said to Leonardo, "Make him drink this."

Picking up the cup gingerly and sniffing it he asked, "What is this foul thing?"

"Something to wake him up."

"What do you want with us?" by this time, despite his terrible headache, Ezio was lucid enough to mumble his question.

Stooping downwards like an aged hawk, the gypsy woman looked the youth in his eye. "Your quarry glows like a beacon when the dark veil of "the Devil's Sight" falls over you. You know the secret rooms and dark places of the earth when "the Sight" reveals their location to you... No darkness truly blinds you for you are able to see in the blackest night..."

Although there was no reaction from the youth, Leonardo's eyes clearly widened. Ezio had previously revealed his secret to his friend after a bout of heavy drinking when he found his secret almost too heavy to bear alone.

The old woman grinned in response. She pushed the foul-smelling cup towards the young man.

"Drink up, and I'll tell you what your heart desires to know..."

Ezio grabbed the cup and downed it in a single gulp. He was past fear. If the liquid in the cup was some sort of poison, he would at least be released from his miserable existence. As expected, the taste of the mixture was unbearably bitter. He almost threw up again, as the liquid burned a trail down his gullet.

When the colour returned to his face, the gypsy woman put a basin of warm water with an old towel out in front of the youth, made him wash his face and lay the towel on his throbbing forehead.

"The ancient powers of the earth smile on you, boy," she remarked as she settled down comfortably opposite the pair. "Like the maestro here, you have the power to do great good things, or great terrible things..."

Leonardo raised an eyebrow. "I... We are flattered by that notion... but I for one certainly do not find myself the master of anything... "

The old woman clicked her tongue, "You maestro, will be remembered for your thoughts and works long after you have departed this life. Those that come after will speak of your name in legends, like as the gods of old."

Turning to Ezio she remarked, "Your name however, will likely pass into history unremembered except by those who are like you... Who walk your path. You will be a mighty hero unto them."

"What do you mean... 'like me'? Will there be others with this 'Devil's Sight'?" the old woman's words sounded pretty incredulous to Ezio.

"You are the son of a murderer. Born from a long line of killers. You have many kinfolk... and yourself will have many sons. Your gift will pass to some of them."

Ezio laughed, "Banking might be at cutthroat business at times, but I hardly think my father has actually killed anyone with the amount of interest he charges."

"Your father is a fool for having kept this secret from you. You might be better prepared if you knew," the old woman muttered.

"And WHAT do I have to prepare myself for?"

"What you MUST do," the gypsy woman lurched out and glared into the youth's eyes. "You must be strong, swift, skilled and cunning... And not...This.." she prodded his slightly protruding belly.

"Your father has many enemies, and before you know it, you will have to fight for your life!" her words fell like lead weights. "If you do nothing and allow yourself to be manipulated by the circumstances which you believe are beyond your control, then not only yourself and your family, but your children and their children... All of mankind... Will become SLAVES!"

There was a dead silence. Despite the sheer incredulity of her words, there was something about them that sent a chill down the spines of both men.

"You and your father… and all your ancestors before you... you were all born to strength... You must kill, to balance the world. There are monsters walking in the flesh of men and if they are not culled, they will bring chaos to this world... "

"So have no fear of your 'gift'... neither curse it... " she added. "Rid yourself of all these fears, otherwise they will turn your greatest gifts into your greatest burdens."

Ezio wanted to ask the woman how she knew about his "Sight", but as soon as her eyes rolled up exposing the whites, she started speaking in a language neither of them understood. Unable to get a coherent answer from her, they left soon after. Both men were quite surprised that they were allowed to leave without being harassed by the other gypsies for more money.

"That was… rather melodramatic… and quite entertaining… I can't imagine your father's face if he found out he was a murderer." The two friends started laughing as soon as they reached a bustling marketplace.

"But how did she know about… "the Sight"?"

"Lucky guess… I suppose." the artist replied.

"Perhaps she was a witch," Ezio appeared a little concerned.

"Well, if she was, she wasn't a very good one."

They both started laughing again.

With their good spirits restored, the pair decided to stay out a little while longer and enjoy the festivities. They headed over to the nearest tavern where some of Leonardo's acquaintances frequented.

That turned out to be the worst decision of their lives.


	6. Cursed!

_**Disclaimer:**I do not own Ezio or any other mentioned Assassin's Creed characters, they are the property of Ubisoft. As for the historical characters mentioned… well.. I guess they belong to history… or themselves…_

_**Author Notes:**_  
><em>While doing some reading up about the various historical characters in the Assassin's Creed story, I noticed that 1476 was a pretty significant year for Leonardo. Funny no one in the game mentions it since "the incident" would have been a talking point in Florence that year.<em>

_Also, I decided to give Vieri slightly better fighting skills. I mean, for a young man who has allegedly been trained to kill from a young age, he sure seems incompetent in the game._

_**Glossary:  
><strong>Il Buco - translated directly, it means "the hole". Apparently an actual tavern in 15th century Florence._

_There are also a bunch of Italian swear words, but I think you can google them for the meaning._

* * *

><p>Neither Ezio nor Leonardo had any recollection how it happened. After leaving the crazed gypsy woman, they decided to head over to Il Buco, a tavern that a number of Leonardo's acquaintances liked to frequent. They had a bit of dinner and then started drinking again over a game of cards (despite Leonardo's protests that Ezio had way too much already). After losing and then winning a few hands, the card players decided to move their party over to the a nearby house that was owned by one of the men. Along the way they picked up one or two more "acquaintances", including a particularly good looking fellow which Ezio vaguely remembered was either called "Giulio" or "Jacopo".<p>

What happened after they stepped through the door and made their way up to a comfortable second floor lounging area was almost a blur. Ezio was sure that they had quite a few more drinks before he started singing loudly and Leonardo cracked a joke which made them all fall down laughing. After that, the warm feeling created by the liquor and music brought out some deeply repressed emotions and he started crying and hugging everyone. The last thing he remembered was his friend's arm around his shoulders and then after that he drifted off into a warm, comforting slumber.

The Office of the Night said that when they raided "that den of sin", they found him in the arms of his lover, one Leonardo da Vinci, a Florentine artist with a spotty record.

After he sobered up enough for the officials at the Office to read to him "the charges", Ezio found out that he had somehow been participant in "a decadent orgy of the flesh the likes of which would have done Sodom proud". In fact, when the house was raided in the middle of the night, the owner was caught "without his pants… in the embrace of a notorious harlot", a rather dashing young fellow by the name of Jacopo Saltarelli, whom they "picked up" en route to the house.

Ezio highly doubted that he had actually "participated" in anything that evening because he woke up in jail fully dressed with the fastenings of his shirt tied in the exact same manner as he would have done himself. And as he later said to his own doubting father in a nasty argument, "…the only part of me that is actually hurting is my head… and no it's not the OTHER HEAD!"

Although Ezio spent only 1 day in the jail cells of the Office of the Night, "the case" dragged on for months, right through into the New Year. The date of his trial was set for sometime in the beginning of 1476. The reason for the prolonged "investigations" was because there were so many defendants, who demanded to be given time to find legal representation that was "befitting their stature".

The young man had no idea who the other defendants were, except for Leonardo, whom he did not see again until the trial.

Naturally Giovanni was furious when he arrived at the Office to get his son out of jail. He practically dragged the young man home after sitting for 3 hours with the officials as they laid out the details of the case for him. Once they were home, Ezio had to endure another hour or so of his father's tirade in front of his entire family. No one, not even Maria, had ever seen Giovanni Auditore so infuriated. His face was contorted to the point where Ezio could almost believe the old gypsy's words, that his father could kill a man.

Life became nothing short of unbearable for the young man, he felt people whispering, staring and pointing at him wherever he went. Even the eyes of the family servants seemed to reflect their judgment of him. He began to find solace in his work, especially when he had to stay up for long hours in the night pouring over accounting ledgers. It was the one time where he didn't have to speak to anyone at all.

Amazingly, his first "supporter" was also the banker he had been apprenticed to since he was 14. Giovanni Tornabouni, one of Florence's most powerful merchants was once asked if he might "send away the young Auditore". The great man replied, "He is honest, intelligent and diligent… all that we expect from a banker. I see no reason to 'send away' my apprentice just because some people say that he is a degenerate in his free time."

Although Ezio started staying late at the offices of the Tornabouni family to avoid his family, his elder brother was always there to walk him home. He also accompanied him on the way to work early in the morning.

"You don't have to do this, you know," Ezio remarked rather irritably to his brother one morning as they walked to his workplace.

"But I WANT to."

"You can tell father that I'll be the model of … chastity… from now on…. Not that I haven't been the model of chastity for the last 17 years…" he sniped back bitterly.

"You mean you haven't... not at all?" there was an incredulous look on Federico's face. "I would have thought that you and Leo…"

"…are just FRIENDS!" he almost yelled he reply in his brother's face. "Despite what father thinks."

They were within sight of the Tornabouni offices and Ezio took the opportunity to stomp off quickly. He knew Federico would not follow him to his place of work. His older brother made it a point to avoid the place. Once, many years ago, he too was apprenticed to Giovanni Tornabouni, but the work never really suited Federico and he often tried to sneak off halfway during the day. He eventually was "let off" because he hid a bag of money on the rooftop as part of a prank to scare one of the other apprentices he didn't quite like.

The day passed rather drearily for the young man. It seemed as if every other customer at the bank were giving him odd stares. He almost wished that his father was indeed some murderer. At least there would be a good reason for all the unwanted "attention" he was getting from the general populace of Florence.

"Excuse me, did you see my father Signor Vespucci?"

Ezio raised his head and looked into the brown eyes of the most beautiful thing that walked the face of the earth. Momentarily dumbfounded, he raised a finger to point at the closed door where her father was meeting with Signor Tornabouni.

"He's with Signor Tornabouni," he added after quite a spell after he noticed the frown of confusion on her face. "Please, do take a seat signorina-"

She plopped herself down on a nearby chair without answering his question. As the minutes ticked away, Ezio found himself unable to concentrate on his work with such a lovely creature just a few feet from him. He finally reached into his desk drawer to pull out the sketchbook in which he sometimes doodled when visiting Leonardo in his studio and began a new drawing. After a few minutes, he was so focused on outlining the rough features of her face that he didn't notice the shadow that loomed just right in front of his desk.

"What are you doing?"

He awoke from his artistic stupor, almost in shock, nearly hitting the chin of the "lovely creature" who had bent over to look at his drawing. Apologizing quickly, he hastily pulled a ledger over his sketchbook.

"Nothing. It is…" he stopped midway through his denial, quietly chiding himself for his cowardliness.

"I'm sketching," he pulled out his sketchbook and showed it to the young maiden. She flipped through the pages, an amused smile playing on her lips.

"I would like to paint you!... I mean, paint a portrait… of you," he blurted out quickly before she could make a comment about his sketchings, which Leonardo often corrected.

He waited for a reply, but the moments passed without words as the maiden's lips widened to a giggle.

"I… I'm sorry… my name is…"

"Ezio Auditore, yes I know who you are," Ezio almost rolled his eyes. Practically everyone knew who he was these days.

"Christina," she held out her hand, which he kissed in proper gentlemanly fashion, although his lips were tingling for a long time after that.

Although the door to Tornabouni's office swung open right at that inopportune moment, Ezio never noticed the odd look that Signor Vespucci was giving him.

"Yes, you may… paint a portrait of me," she smiled as she left the bank with her father.

As soon as she disappeared from view, Ezio's brow wrinkled into a deep frown. His paintings were even worse than his sketchings.

Seeing his distress, the old banker put a hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry, my boy, at the end of the day, women will always pick a man who can provide her with a comfortable life."

Ezio's heart was singing. In an almost automatic response, he left his workplace earlier that day, missing Federico completely and practically ran to his friend's studio to tell him about Christina and probably ask for help with the painting. He spotted his friend carrying a bunch of paintings at the corner of a street near his studio. Although initially cautious, Leonardo's face lit up once Ezio waved and started to walk towards him.

"Ezio!" a firm hand weighed down on his shoulder pulling him back.

Looking around quickly, he stared into the worried face of his brother. Looking back again at Leonardo, the artist stopped in his tracks, quickly turned and walked away. Tears welling in his eyes, the young man wanted to follow his friend, but his brother's firm hand held him back.

* * *

><p>Nearly every day for 2 weeks, Ezio stopped by the Vespucci house after work to paint Christina's portrait. Although her father gave him some odd looks at the beginning, he soon ignored the unassuming youth, leaving him free to spend time alone with his lovely daughter. Despite his own misgivings about his ability to paint, Christina's portrait turned out rather well. She seemed genuinely impressed by his ability and one fine day decided to walk home with him.<p>

As they turned down a quiet street near the Vespucci home, a familiar and unwelcome figure approached them from the other end. Vieri de' Pazzi, the foul-tempered, spoiled son of Francesco de' Pazzi quickly made his way towards the pair. Personally Ezio seldom had any encounters with Vieri and his friends, however, his brother Federico had gotten into a few brawls with them in the past few months.

"You would choose to associate yourself with this... degenerate... over me?" Vieri sneered as he neared the pair. "I grow tired Christina, of waiting for you to… open your legs."

Ezio quickly stepped in front of Christina. "Leave now Vieri... or I'll..."

"Or you'll what? You want to challenge me?" he moved threateningly towards the young man.

"Stop..."

In a single, swift motion, Vieri's fist shot out and struck Ezio on the side of the face. A second quick swing from his left caught the young man on his mouth, which started bleeding immediately. Dazed by the blows, Ezio reeled backwards. Suddenly he felt a hand over his face, pushing him backward as his attacker swiftly lifted one of his legs and sent him crashing onto the hard cobblestone road. As the back of his head smashed against the hard stone, he was reminded again of that fateful day when, staring up into the azure sky, his wings were clipped and he spun downwards into the dirt.

Vieri dropped a knee on Ezio's chest and pulled out a dagger from his belt.

"I'm going to give you a new opening on your face, sodomite," he drew the cruel blade of the dagger deep over Ezio's bleeding lips.

A loud and agonizing sound escaped from his lips, as he felt the blade, like a burning brand dragged across his mouth. Then, almost as quickly, he felt the weight lifted off his chest and he heard a familiar voice.

"I'll kill you, Pazzi!"

Ezio tilted his head just enough to see Vieri stumbling to get up, only to be punched in the face by his brother. A further few quick blows by Federico sent the bully running, swearing terrible vengeance on the brothers and their accursed family.

"Oh my god, Ezio!" Christina rushed towards the young man. Kneeling she drew out a handkerchief to stop the bleeding from his mouth.

Despite the pain and profuse bleeding, Ezio felt a light, tingling sensation in his heart as he saw himself reflected in Christina's limpid eyes while her soft hands cradled his face.

* * *

><p>The best thing about Christina was also the worst thing. She could be kind to the helpless and show compassion to those in distress, however, the true desires of her heart were not always evident in her actions. The incident with Vieri resulted in her lasting friendship, but not her admiration and certainly not her desire, as Ezio discovered. Unfortunately, the cut that Vieri gave him turned into a rather distinctive scar and it would have been a scar that Ezio would have worn proudly, if not for the fact that Christina asked both brothers to come over when she was sitting for the portrait that he was painting.<p>

It soon became evident to the younger Auditore that Christina was very much attracted to his older brother, and sadly, not to him. Ezio thought about confronting Federico regarding the blossoming relationship, after all, he was the one who had initiated the chase, but decided against it. His brother seemed unaware of his sibling's attraction to the young lady.

As the scar healed over, Ezio made sure that his hair was as long as his father's so that it would cover that awful mark on his face. Since he had the habit of walking around with his gaze perpetually fixed on the ground before him, he bent his head downwards a little more so that his dark, shoulder-length hair dropped like a veil over his mark of shame. The black cloud of depression that so often beset him in the past reared its ugly head and made him so miserable that he found it impossible to complete his painting. Moreover, Christina did not press him for it since there was another more attractive distraction in her view.

Eventually, as winter drew the year 1475 to a close, he stopped going over to Christina's. The only comfort that he drew from his current situation was that his brother no longer tailed him like a shadow to and from work. Although he would have liked to stop by the studio to see his friend, he noticed some men from the Office of the Night hanging around each time he passed by Leonardo's workplace.

One dark December evening, as Ezio made his way home from the Tornabouni offices, he passed by the Ponte Vecchio. Staring into the dark waters beneath the bridge, he wondered if it would be better for the whole world if he jumped in and allowed himself to sink. As his thoughts slowly drifted like the cold vapour from his breath, he heard a scream from a nearby alley. Despite his depressive mood, something instinctual caused him to pick up speed and run towards the direction of the sound. Down a dark and rather narrow alleyway, he saw the familiar figure of Vieri pinning a struggling courtesan to the wall.

"... I assure you, you will be quite sore in the morning," he leered at the frightened brunette, his hand moving up her short skirt.

There was a brief moment where the thought of simply walking away entered the young man's mind, but something inside of Ezio snapped and he found himself running towards Vieri, shoulder forward as he barreled into the nobleman's chest. Caught completely off guard, Vieri fell backwards onto the cobblestone street, his limbs flailing helplessly. Instinct made Ezio move forward, his foot shot out to give the noble scum a sharp kick to the ribs. Unfortunately for the young Auditore, who spent years suppressing his own natural gifts and thus hesitated when closing the distance between himself and his opponent, Vieri managed to grab the oncoming foot, gave it a sharp twist and sent the young man falling sideways onto the ground.

As his chest hit the ground, Ezio felt Vieri throw his weight on his back as he twisted the young man's hand and forearm to a position where he could not move it.

"Pezzo di merda!" he screamed into the young man's ear. "Pompinara! Sorca!... I'll show you what happens to women and… girly men who think they can fight me!"

He began to tear at Ezio's pants, pulling them downwards. "And it WILL be long and painful… just like for this puttana here…"

A great terror welled up inside of Ezio, it pressed against the seams of his own consciousness almost to the point of bursting. But something, some small fire inside of him refused to submit and he struggled with all his might. This was one time he knew he had to win, in spite of the odds. Unfortunately, Vieri was indeed much better trained and stronger than he was, and he found that the scum knew how to twist his wrist to the point it almost popped out of its socket.

_Crack!_

Suddenly, he felt Vieri release him. Rolling around quickly, he saw the young noble clutching a bleeding head. A short distance away, a brunette courtesan stood, one hand raised, holding a bloodied stone. Vieri screamed a curse at the woman, a moment that gave Ezio just enough time to act. In an instant that he would long remember, time seemed to slow to a crawl as he jumped straight at Vieri, knocking him flat on the ground. Even before the scum's head hit the floor, he threw his entire body weight onto Vieri's chest and sat on him as his fists repeatedly pounded the nobleman's skull. With a strength that he never knew he had, Ezio turned Vieri's face into a bloodied mass in swift seconds. His mind was a haze of red and he was only dimly aware that bone was breaking under his knuckles.

"Stop! Stop, you are killing him!" the courtesan shouted into his ear, her own slender arms pulling his with all her might.

At this point, Ezio woke up from his maddened stupor. He stared in horror at the unrecognizable mess that was Vieri's face. He quickly stumbled off the still form of his attacker.

"My God! My God! What have I done?"

Ezio raised his hands slowly to his face, staring at the bloody gore they were covered in. He began to whimper and tears flooded his eyes. Then, he heard shouts from the street, vaguely he recognized them to be the voices of some of Vieri's friends. He froze in terror as they descended on the alley and spotted him before he could turn and flee.

Just as he thought he was going to end up a dead man floating down the Arno, a cloaked and hooded figure jumped out of the shadows between him and Vieri's friends. Swiftly, with inhuman speed, this stranger blocked an oncoming blow from the first of Vieri's friends and with a turn of his body, sent the youth sprawing onto the ground with a dislocated shoulder. This caused a blockage in the narrow alleyway and the young men nearly stumbled over each other to prevent themselves from tripping over their prone friend. One of the youths in the front of the jam pulled out a dagger and attempted to strike the stranger, but amazingly the hooded man caught the youth's wrist, and with a bone crunching twist that Ezio had never seen anyone perform, disarmed the poor fool before reverse striking him with his own weapon.

Despite the imminent danger, Ezio found himself strangely attracted to the graceful flow of the stranger's actions. Like the cobra of an Indian snake charmer, he was mesmerized by what he saw.

"Quick, this way!" the courtesan pulled at Ezio's sleeve, dragging him down the alley and away from the danger.

Once he started moving, Ezio felt a cold fear in his belly. He ran after the brunette as fast as he could. However, she knew the alleyways better than him and he lost her in the maze of Florence's streets. Eventually, he stopped by a public fountain and washed his hands in the icy water. As the bloody stream flowed into the basin and down into the drain below, his thoughts contorted themselves into a dizzying whirlpool. He began to cry softly as the terror of what might happen to him once Vieri's friends reported the incident to the Pazzi's filled his mind.

He stumbled home as quickly as he could, straightening his clothes so that no one who was awake at that hour would see what happened to him. Despite the hurry he was in, Ezio decided to take a roundabout route through small alleyways and avoided the main streets. It was 2 hours before he managed to make his way home. He prayed that he would enter a dark and silent house.

Ezio sadly, never had much in the way of luck. As he limped into the courtyard of the Auditore home, he saw his brother at the door facing what appeared to be a very stern looking Giovanni.

"I swear papa, I did NOT beat up Vieri! Though I would thank the man who wounded him so grievously tonight."

"Federico…" there was a warning tone in his father's voice.

"It is the truth! I have not seen him since the day he tried to harass Signorina Vespucci."

Ezio tried to back away quietly. Maybe he could slip in through the servants' entrance at the other end of the house.

"Ezio!"

Ezio cursed silently.

"Come here!"

Slowly, he walked over to the doorway into the pool of light cast by the lamps inside the house.

"What in heaven's name happened to you?" his father's voice rang crisply in the night air. Looking up, he saw his mother and sister peering down through a second storey window at the commotion below.

"Nothing…" he whispered.

He tried to brush past his father and move into the house, but Giovanni's firm hand on his shoulder stopped him. Tears filled his eyes but he stubbornly prevented them from falling. He wanted to tell them all about Vieri and the awful thing that happened, but could not. The old gypsy's prophecy rang in his mind. Perhaps he indeed was devil-cursed and a monstrous killer hid in his heart. However, that was a secret his family must never know.

"I made love to a man!... A dozen men!" he screamed into his father's face. Shocked by the outburst, Giovanni loosened his grip on his son, and Ezio dashed blindly up the stairs to his room before slamming the door shut behind his entire family.

He curled up in a dark corner of his room, his hands over his face as he muffled his own loud sobs so no one could hear them.


	7. The Courtesan

_**Disclaimer:**__I do not own Ezio or any other mentioned Assassin's Creed characters, they are the property of Ubisoft. As for the historical characters mentioned… well.. I guess they belong to history… or themselves…_

_**Author Notes:**__  
>I thought this chapter would a nice break from all the misfortune that has surrounded this alternate universe version of Ezio thus far. I have tried my best to make him as realistic as possible, I hope that I'm succeeding at this endeavor. Also, I haven't written anything in this particular vein for a long long time… well, let me know what you think about this strange pairing.<em>

_I kinda have the feeling that this chapter might require some rereading and editing... will do that over the next week or so... but I felt I just had to get this chapter out. Before I fall out of inspiration and get "writer's block".  
><em>

* * *

><p>Ezio glanced out the windows of the Tornabouni offices nervously. He spotted some of Vieri's friends across the street an hour earlier. In fact they seemed to be everywhere these days. He knew for a fact that Vieri was still alive through local gossip and that although he was recovering he was "not quite the same as before". However, the grapevine was eerily silent about what the Pazzis were going to do to the person or persons responsible. In fact, Ezio had expected Francesco Pazzi to barge into the Auditore home and demand an eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth reprisal, or otherwise a duel for honour. But strangely, nothing of the sort happened. In fact, local speculation had it that one of the families whose daughter had been raped by Vieri arranged this terrible punishment.<p>

Florence, oddly enough breathed a sigh of relief at the misfortune that had befallen the young Pazzi. He was quite the terror about town, but no one dared to stop him because the Pazzis were a relatively powerful family. His own brother, Federico, shared the town's sentiment and declared, more than once that he would personally thank the man who had brought the villain down. Ironically, the only person who found little joy in this latest shocking piece of gossip was Ezio, who spent his waking hours in fear.

As a result, he would depart from his place of employment on the dot and return home as quickly as he could. It did not help that Winter was upon them and it was quite dark when Ezio walked back to the Auditore home. The evening sky was especially gloomy when Ezio stepped out onto the chilly streets. He looked around quickly to make sure that none of Vieri's followers were in the vicinity before quickly running over to the cover of a nearby street. Scurrying down the short but dark street as fast as he could, he made his way to an open marketplace that was quiet because many of the storekeepers had closed for the night. Walking, or rather, running as fast as he could to another connecting street, he spotted a cloaked figure at the far end of the market square looking in his direction. Fearing some kind of an ambush or assassination, Ezio ran down a small street, turned and headed down another street to try and lose whoever it is was following him.

He turned round another sharp corner as quickly as he could and nearly collided with a very familiar and terrifying group that he was trying to avoid.

"Bastardo! Get him!"

Turning quickly on his heel, Ezio found himself now running as fast as he could, a small crowd of angry youths chasing after him. Left, right and down some narrow alleys he raced, hoping to lose his attackers. However, they were still on his tail and closing fast. He felt his chest constricting, his body tiring rapidly from having to haul around all the extra weight from his rotund tummy and wobbly arms. He made another right turn and almost stumbled over the wheel of a cart of hay that was parked too close to the corner of a street. His chest had tightened so much he was starting to choke on his breath, a sign that he could not keep up in this race, he threw himself into the cart and crawled under the hay. A few short moments later, the group rounded the bend. Shivering, partly from the cold and partly from intense fear, Ezio put his hand tightly over his mouth so that they could not hear his loud panting.

"Cazzo! Where is that troia?"

This was followed by a few more oaths from members of the group before they left the area in frustration. As soon as they disappeared, Ezio crawled out of the hay and started running up the street he originally came down. Turning his head back frequently to make sure that the group had not spotted him, he did not see the hooded figure emerge from the shadows and collided into the stranger. Screaming in terror, he threw up an arm in a floundering attempt to block a possible attack. Unfortunately, the piercing cry, amplified in the silence of the night, drew the attention of the group who was hunting him. He saw them turn the corner and run down the street towards him.

"Come with me!" the hooded figure pulled at his arm. It was a female voice.

Ezio allowed himself to be led along by the hooded lady as they ran down a few narrow streets. Then suddenly, she led him down a narrow alleyway and pushed open a door whose entrance was almost hidden in a deeply recessed alcove. Stumbling into a warmly-lit, but rather shabbily furnished house, she slammed the door shut quickly behind them. The noise brought out some of the house's denizens from an adjoining parlour. Soon, the young man found himself surrounded by a few older ladies with thick makeup and dresses that exposed a lot of their bosom with skirts that were hitched up quite high above the thighs.

"Lucia, who have you brought tonight?"

The hooded lady removed the covering on her head. A crop of curly brunette hair that was done up in an attractive manner popped into view, as well as a face that he instantly recognized from the night at the Ponte Vecchio.

"Nice to see someone young for a change," one of the ladies tittered. In fact, his presence created quite a buzz among the ladies of this particular house. A number of them swished out their fans and started winking at him from behind an outspread screen of lace and silk.

Lucia quickly grabbed his arm and whispered into Ezio's ear.

"Pay the matron," she gestured to an extremely elderly woman with a cane who hobbled out from a back room.

Ezio opened his mouth to argue, but a sharp look from the brunette made him hold his tongue. After parting with some of his coin, the brunette pulled him up the stairs and into a rather small but comfortably furnished room with a window that faced the street below. Shutting the door quickly, Lucia moved to the window and peered out.

"They're still wandering around down there. I don't think they saw us come in here," she whispered.

"Uh… who are you… and why…"

"Payment," she replied rather candidly. "For saving me from the Pazzi the other night… and you look like you need help."

"… thank you," he whispered hesitantly.

He went over to the window and peered out. The group that was chasing him was now apparently searching the street for their quarry.

"I think it might be awhile before they go away," she removed her cloak and plopped herself on the bed.

"Oh God…" he whimpered. Sitting himself on a nearby chair he buried his face in his hands, silently cursing his lack of any kind of luck.

A moment passed, and then another.

Lucia cleared her throat politely, "You might want to make use of your time here…"

Ezio looked up at the courtesan in confusion.

"You DID pay for… tonight…" she purred, rearranging herself more sensuously on the bed so that her perfectly round and ample bosom was nicely positioned where he could admire them.

Unlike most of the ladies he saw here, Lucia was actually fairly young. She had pale, smooth skin and limpid hazel eyes that were now examining him with great curiosity. Sliding off the bed, she glided over to a spot slightly behind the hard chair he was sitting on. Carefully, almost tenderly, she wrapped one arm over a shoulder and slid the other under his arms and around the large velvet coat that he wore. With half-closed lids, she ran her delicate nose up his neck and nibbled his ear. Although she could not see the expression on his face, she could feel his body tremble with uncertainty. Lucia allowed her hands to descend playfully down the young man's body, till she found an opening in his coat close to the seat of the chair and slid her hand in.

With a sharp intake of breath, Ezio jumped out of his seat and flattened himself against a nearby wall. Frowning but undeterred, the courtesan stomped over to where the young man was hugging the wall, pressed herself against him and began unbuttoning his outer coat. Jerking away suddenly, as if being touched by fire, Ezio pushed the courtesan away.

"No," he gasped, his voice was trembling.

"Why, what's wrong?" a frown formed on the courtesan's perfect, ivory brow. "Is it true that you prefer… men?"

"NO!" he was panting heavily, whether from fear or excitement, Lucia could not tell.

He turned towards the window and stared downwards at the figures who were still moving around outside looking for him.

"I just don't want to."

A look of confusion crossed the brunette's face as she gazed upon the young man. Although he was quite tall, he walked and stood with a hunch. Deep lines crossed his smooth, slightly angular face. It was not altogether an unhandsome visage, except for the dark bags under his eyes, which had a particularly haunted look, and a nasty scar that ran down the side of his mouth. As she reached out to touch his face, Ezio quickly dropped his chin and allowed his shoulder-length hair to fall like a veil. He folded his arms, turned away from her and sat on the side of the bed that was partly shadowed in the dim light of the room.

"I'm so very tired," he whispered, carefully avoiding having to look into her large and liquid eyes.

"Then maybe," she sat down beside him and reached for his coat. "You might want to take off your coat so you'll be more comfortable sleeping."

He pulled himself away from the beautiful brunette. "It's a cold night… I would like to have it on."

"Well, suit yourself," her rosebud mouth crinkled up in a wiry smile. "I'll go get us a pot of warm tea."

There was a moment of silence, almost as if she was waiting for some other kind of response. Then he heard the door close as she left the room. He squeezed his eyes shut. He never did like others looking at him, not even Christina. Everywhere he went, people were always judging him with their eyes, and most of the time, he felt that he was beneath what was expected. It also really did not help that his father and elder brother were quite good-looking as were the rest of his family. He only ever felt comfortable with Petuccio, who was pale, sickly and bedridden.

Ezio lay on his side, arms wrapped close to his body, trying his best to rest a little. However, every time he shut his eyes, images of a beautiful brunette with limpid eyes flooded into view. Even now, he could feel her soft lips pressing against his neck, her warm breath on his cheek and her hands running down his body to touch his…

His entire body shuddered. There was a terrible aching in his chest accompanied by tremendous amount of fear. A hundred desires welled up like a spring from inside – his desire to live, to be respected, to be loved and to feel pleasure. His breathing became ragged as his eyes filled up with moistness. As much as he wanted to be with a beautiful creature, he could not bear the thought of a look of disgust on her face.

_You are being silly._ A voice in his mind chided him. He didn't really have to care what she thought of him. She was after all, only a courtesan.

Dim sunlight from a wintry sky flooded into the room when he opened his eyes again. Turning over, he found himself face to face with the ivory-skinned brunette. She had fallen asleep beside him, the bedcovers draped over the perfect curve of her hip. On a side table was a pot of what was likely now cold tea. She was completely still, almost serene, except for the rising and falling of her chest. Ezio reached out carefully and with a finger, lightly touched the perfect skin of her cheek. He hesitated for a moment, then leaned over quietly and brushed his lips gently, like the wings of a butterfly scooping the air to take flight on the creamy surface of her cheek.

She murmured something indistinct and a hand came up to brush the area that his lips met. Startled by the motion, the young man quickly got up and exited the room. A moment later, Lucia calmly opened her eyes as the clatter of boots descended the wooden stairway.

* * *

><p>Ezio peeked around the corner, just to be sure. There she was, standing at the side of the street, with a group of other courtesans. It was the third time this week that he bumped into the courtesan called Lucia. The first time it happened, he practically walked into her, because he was looking over his shoulder to see that he wasn't followed by more of Vieri's friends. He saw her again one evening, walking outside his workplace with a gentleman on her arm. Ezio highly doubted that it was purely the whim of Fate alone that caused her to pop up so often near him.<p>

Gritting his teeth, he quickly turned the corner and walked past the group as fast as he could. With Vieri's gang still hot on his tail, it was the most inconvenient time to have some strange, beautiful woman stalking him.

"Signor Auditore!" a voice that was all too familiar rang out from behind him. He quickened his pace so that he was almost running down the street. However, since running was his Achilles' heel, it wasn't too long before his pursuer caught up with him.

He found himself staring at a red-faced courtesan.

"Why are you following me?" she demanded.

"I'm NOT following you! If anything, I would say, you are following me!" he retorted.

"Oh, so you mean it was just PURE COINCIDENCE that I find you hiding in the bank, staring at me?"

Ezio rolled his eyes, "I WORK there!"

"And how about in front of the fishmonger's? I daresay you walked into me on purpose!"

"My home is just across the street!" Ezio spluttered.

"And what's your excuse… this time?" she stared into his eyes in a challenging manner.

Ezio realized that their shouting match was gathering quite a crowd in the middle of the market square. Not wanting to make yet another foolish spectacle of himself, he pulled Lucia to a quiet side street.

"I was trying to avoid… Vieri's gang…" he finally replied. "I'm not following you… you just happen to be at every… place I frequent…"

Ezio frowned.

"So why ARE you at every place I frequent anyway?" he demanded.

"I have one or two… customers… older men… bankers to be precise… I buy fish from that fishmonger's every Friday… and that's my corner… in the afternoon at least…" she replied.

"So how come I've never seen you… ever?" Ezio was quite puzzled.

"Maybe because you keep looking at dirt like its gold…" she shot back with a flick of her head that sent her hair flying in his direction in an impertinent manner.

"I… I do not!"

"So why haven't I seen you? I practically walk to your house once a week!" she queried.

Ezio turned his head away and started staring at the cobblestones on the street.

"I don't know."

Truth be told the answer popped into his head the minute Lucia asked her question. He was quite an unremarkable fellow that would never be picked out by an observer on the street. There was a tense silence, before Lucia laughed. She glided up to him playfully, leaning on his chest.

"Maybe…" she drew tiny circles with her slender finger, tracing out the embroidery on his coat. "Maybe this is Fate… Well, I do not mind having … YOU … as a patron."

She was close, so close he could smell the delicate fragrance of her hair. Unconsciously, he wrapped an arm around her waist and closed his eyes. He felt the courtesan lean closer towards him, and then something soft and moist brushed against his lips.

"Why is it that every woman I desire chooses you, Auditore?"

Ezio's eyes snapped open in panic. Turning his head towards the sound, he saw the familiar figure of Vieri, except that instead of a hat, a long cloak and a deeply cowled hood now shadowed his face. He moved towards the pair in an awkward manner, his shoulders jerking strangely, throwing the head into an odd tilt, as though he were unable to pull his shoulders and head into the correct alignment.

Immediately, Ezio moved Lucia behind him.

"Leave us alone, Vieri!"

"If you really wanted to be left alone, Auditore, you should not have interfered that night at the Ponte Vecchio," he replied in a threatening manner. "Our fates are tied, Ezio, especially after… THIS!"

He pushed back the hood.

"God in heaven!" Lucia gasped.

Vieri's face was distorted to the point where he was almost unrecognizable. His broken jaw did not heal properly and was strangely twisted. The orbital bone of one of his eyes was flattened, so that the eye seemed to bulge out grotesquely. His nose was obviously badly broken and the head was tilted in an odd manner, as were his shoulders, which looked as if it had a hump.

"I've spent considerable time thinking about how to "repay" you…" he drew a dagger from his belt. "I think I'll take your nose and ears… carve a few more holes in your face!"

He lunged at the young man with his blade, but Ezio managed to jump backwards just enough so that its wicked edge missed him by a hair. Vieri immediately reversed the flow of his strike and the sharp edge was now speeding in an upward arc. Realizing too late that he would likely not be able to dodge the second blow, Ezio threw his arm up in terror. Thankfully, the thick fabric of his coat only caused the sharp dagger to tear at the sleeve. Vieri pushed Ezio's arm roughly to the side, causing the young man to lurch forwards with the motion as he brought the dagger downwards in a curving arc.

Suddenly, he heard a thud and a short, hoarse shout from Vieri. Bringing his arm up again to block any further blows, Ezio peeked over his raised elbow and into the familiar face of his brother. Swinging down from a ledge on the wall, Federico kicked Vieri in the face before he could do further harm. Seeing that the assailant had reeled backwards from the force of the kick, Federico landed on the street and stepped forward, his fist shooting out to break Vieri's nose a second time. Blood spurted like a fountain as Vieri stumbled to the side. Seeing that he was out numbered, Vieri brought his hand up to his nose to stop the bleeding and ran away as fast as he could.

"Oh Ezio! Thank God!" Lucia threw her arms round shaken youth and planted a kiss on his cheek.

Federico raised his eyebrows at the pair. Then with a knowing smile reached out and offered a hand to his younger brother.

"I see you're becoming quite the local hero, little brother," he grinned.

"It was nothing, just… bad luck that I bumped into Vieri," Ezio growled.

"THAT was Vieri?" Federico was quite shocked. "… He doesn't look like he has recovered…"

"He DESERVES to wear his black heart on his face!" Lucia piped up.

"Who is this lovely lady?" Federico asked his brother. Now that the courtesan stepped forward, his eyes ran up and down the length of her body, almost in appraisal.

"You may call me Lucia," she smiled.

"Where are my manners?" the older Auditore brother bent down and kissed the dainty brunette's hand. "Federico Auditore."

Ezio's heart sank. This scene was all too familiar. As the pair went through the usual introductions, he turned away quietly from them, and started to make his way out into the market square.

* * *

><p>Ezio carefully avoided all the places that he knew she would be. It was almost a week since that incident with Vieri. Although he was glad that he wasn't hurt during that unpleasant encounter, Ezio was not altogether too happy that Federico showed up when he did. He did not feel much animosity towards Federico regarding Christina, because he rationalized that family was more important than any petty squabble over an outsider. However, something was definitely different now, and he was feeling quite ill at the thought of his brother with Lucia. He quietly chided himself repeatedly for leaving the two of them together. He wanted to say something about it, to protest, to claim something as his own, but every argument that popped into his mind sounded quite infantile and childish.<p>

The thoughts were so intense he was unable to concentrate during his working hours at the bank. It got to the point where Signor Tornabouni actually asked him if he was feeling well.

"Take a few days off, Auditore. You look like you caught a fever from this cold spell we are having," the old banker remarked.

"I'm so sorry, Signor Tornabouni."

"No need for apologies," there was an almost fatherly look in Tornabouni's eyes. "The winter festivities are almost upon us and you most certainly deserve a rest after dedicating yourself to this institution for the whole year."

Ezio nodded. Perhaps a few days of rest would clear his head. Maybe he would take the time to have a little talk with his brother. Something that was overdue since they hardly talked these days.

He was relieved when evening approached and he exited the bank. The distractions were so bad that some of the other apprentices were beginning to look at him rather oddly. He quietly hoped that none of them would probe further regarding his "fever".

Stepping away from the doorstep of the bank, he walked straight into a woman with a hooded cloak. As he snapped out of his reverie he found himself staring into the face of a familiar courtesan.

"W…What on earth are you doing here?" he spluttered.

"Waiting for you," Lucia replied.

"What for?" he started walking away fast, however, the brunette seemed determined to keep pace with him.

"Why are you avoiding me?"

"I'm NOT avoiding you," he retorted.

"So where have you been this past week?" she peered into his eyes.

"Working at the bank," he replied.

"Why did you leave us so abruptly… that evening," she pulled at his arm to slow him down.

"So you could both spend some time alone… together," he bitterly replied. "Isn't that what you want? It's good for your business… Federico would make an excellent customer."

_Smack!_

A stinging slap found its way across the young man's face. Although what he said was true, she hated the way he said it. No one had made her feel this badly about her profession in a long long time.

"You stupid, stupid fool!" her words were strangled by the tears welling in her eyes. "How DARE you presume to know what I WANT! I don't need or want your brother, I want YOU!"

Ezio was stunned by her admission. There were a million questions spinning in his head, but wisely for once, he kept his thoughts to himself. Reaching out gently, he pulled the courtesan into his arms.


	8. The Condottiere

_**Disclaimer:**I do not own Ezio or any other mentioned Assassin's Creed characters, they are the property of Ubisoft. As for the historical characters mentioned… well.. I guess they belong to history… or themselves…_

_**Author**__**Notes:**___I tried to find a historical figure for this chapter that would assist in the personal development of Ezio in this storyline. Sadly, all the possible candidates:  
>1. Likely died before he was born<br>2. Were kids at the time  
>3. Are too famous  or infamous, so that kinda restricts what I can do with the storyline of the character. I like to keep it as close to the actual historical personage as possible.  
>4. Are of the wrong social status or circumstance to be interested in helping a floundering young man<em>_

So I had to settle for an OC in the end.

_**Glossary:  
><strong>Condottiere_ -_ mercenary soldier leaders (or warlords) of the professional, military free companies contracted by the Italian city-states and the Papacy, from the late Middle Ages and throughout the Renaissance._

_Bocconotti_ – cream puffs… the type that this AU incarnation of Ezio likes._  
><em>

* * *

><p>Lucia was extremely secretive today. She pulled Ezio along the streets without giving so much as a hint where they were heading. She simply said that there was someone he had to meet. She led him along to a tavern in an older part of Florence.<p>

"Where are we going, Lucia?" he asked.

"To find someone who can teach you how to defend yourself," she replied.

"Why would I need that?" Ezio was quite surprised.

"So that Vieri and his gang won't kill you every time you have the misfortune to bump into that scum," she replied. "I would like to have you very much alive and in good health for a long time to come."

The tavern they stopped at was dimly lit and rather old, Lucia made her way to where a man sat by himself at a table in an alcove at the back.

This man was a tall, middle-aged fellow in somber clothes who wore his hair slicked back and had the lower half of a close-clopped goatee on his chin. He was quite startled to see the pair sit at his table.

He addressed the pair, "This is my table and I usually sit alone."

"We have business with you," Lucia replied.

"And what do you wish of me?" he asked. "I do not usually contact out my services to individuals, although I could recommend you a few good men-at-arms who are in the business of protection."

"I wish to contract you to impart your skills to my friend here.

He took a look at Ezio and laughed.

"Perhaps you might want to find someone else. There are many fencing instructors in our city," he remarked.

"I would like for you to teach my friend how to fight, to defend himself," she said, batting her attractive eyes.

"My Art is ill-suited for gentlemen like your friend here," He glanced at Ezio carefully, "Say, is your name Auditore?"

"Yes."

"Do you have an uncle named Mario? A rather tall fellow with shoulder-length hair and a scar over his left eye."

"I have an uncle by that name, but I do not know what he looks like," the young man replied.

"Your uncle is a mercenary soldier of some renown with his own company of men. If its protection you are looking for, you can ask him instead," he remarked.

"I haven't met my uncle. And he doesn't live here in this city."

"How about your father?" he asked slyly.

"What about my father?" Ezio was quite surprised.

"I believe he could instruct you."

Ezio laughed so hard the other customers at the tavern turned to look at their table.

"My father has never raised his hand against another man in his life," the young man replied.

"Really? From what I see of him, I find that hard to believe," the man remarked. "He is cut from the same cloth as his brother - your uncle."

"Please help him, Signor Acuto," Lucia begged. "Your family has defended our city for generations, your knowledge of the arts of warfare are without equal. ….besides, it was YOU who saved him that night at the Ponte Vecchio from Vieri's gang."

Ezio was shocked at this piece of information.

"And what makes you think we have met before?" he asked.

"I have heard that the condottieri of old could irreversibly break a man with a few simple actions and that one could take on a force of many men and win. The other day, I saw you disarm a man with a twist of your wrist, the same thing our mysterious benefactor did at the Ponte Vecchio."

"So you followed me around?" he quizzed the brunette.

"Pardon my intrusion, but I just had to be sure that you were the one." She replied.

The middle-aged fellow laughed, "I am by far much more persuaded to teach this woman my Art than yourself, Signor Auditore."

Ezio wanted to reply that he wasn't too interested in learning anything from this middle-aged stranger, but the name of Acuto was one that even he had heard. In the days of his great-grandfather, An Englishman, who was also a condottiere, by the name of Giovanni Acuto saved Florence from an invasion. It was said that Sir Acuto married a local girl and made his home in Florence till his death. Ezio was unaware that any of Sir Acuto's descendants still lived in Florence, since his only son moved back to England at the behest of the English king. Ezio was also a little reluctant to have anything to do with condottieri, although widely admired for their fighting abililiies, most condottieri were also brutal and savage individuals, glorious monsters who were both admired and reviled at the same breath.

"I think it's time for us to leave," Ezio tugged at Lucia's sleeve.

"Please, Signor Acuto, I promise he'll be a good student… he really does need your help," Ezio had never seen Lucia that insistent with anyone. "If you don't help him he'll end up being killed by Vieri."

"Even if I were to agree, … my fees are high, as you well know," he said. He then proceeded to name an exorbitant amount, which Ezio found himself gaping at. He couldn't make enough in a year to pay Signor Acuto for a month.

"Perhaps I could help even out the payment," Lucia interjected, leaning over the table so that the old soldier could have a good view of her ivory bosom.

Signor Acuto's eyes widened and he swallowed rather visibly, "You drive a hard bargain."

"NO!" Ezio got up and brought his hand down on the table in front of Lucia almost immediately. He felt like hitting the old soldier hard in the face. He pulled Lucia to one side quickly and whispered, "I don't want you doing this and I don't see why I need to learn anything from this fellow."

"He is the best there is in our city," she whispered furiously back. "And what I do with my body is my own business! If you don't do something about your sorry self, you'll be dead before 1476! And I don't want to cry over a dead … lover… not that we've done anything that would give you that title!"

Ezio glared at Lucia, but she glared back fiercely.

Seeing the ruckus, the old soldier interjected. "It would be a lot cheaper for you to appeal to your own family for help."

"Unfortunately, that is something that I cannot do," Ezio replied.

"Really?" Signor Acuto raised an eyebrow at the answer. Things certainly were complicated in the Auditore house.

"Do this, or never speak to me again!" Lucia whispered into the young man's ear. She laid down everything on the line unsure if she could force his hand.

Ezio looked into her limpid eyes. There was fear and a huge amount of uncertainty. But she gazed back at him unwaveringly.

"All right… all right!" he finally said to the old soldier. "I'll pay you the amount in full… somehow. There is no need to collect it from anyone else…"

"And if you do…." He looked at Signor Acuto straight in the eye."I'll…"

"You'll what…" the old soldier met his gaze and his voice rose in a threatening manner.

Somwhere at the back of his mind, he realized that he had threatened a professional killer of men. But he could not back down now.

"I'll kill you." He replied with a finality that surprised everyone at the table, himself included.

"I doubt that," the old soldier remarked. Turning to the courtesan he commented, "I don't know where you found him … what an audacious young fellow!… "

"I think you might be actually worth my time," he said to the young man.

In the end, they worked out a scheme of payment that consisted of both monetary payment and certain bits of work that Ezio had to fulfill for the condottiere. He brought them both to the old old house where he lived.

"There is nothing that I need, except certain repairs to the roof, and the basement needs to be drained of water and cleaned up…. LOTS of work, which I'm sure you'll have no problem with," he eyed the young man doubtfully.

"With regards to the lessons, I have only 2 stipulations… 1, that you never speak of the lessons we have here or reveal any secrets of my Art to anyone… especially not a thug like Vieri… 2. that you will follow all that I say to the letter," he said.

For the next few weeks, Ezio left his work at the bank early to finish up all the work that was owed to Signor Acuto. Although he really did not see the need to have to learn anything from this fellow, he nevertheless kept at it, if not for himself, for the sake of Lucia, who seemed so happy to see him hauling planks of wood round and climbing up ladders to repair the old roof. Despite his own fear of heights, he was more afraid of what Lucia might say if he failed in this endevour. He could not bear to lose her because of his own incompetence.

Amazingly, despite his own initial misgivings, he found himself falling quite easily into the routine of working for Signor Tornabouni in the earlier part of the day and working like a common labourer for Signor Acuto in the late afternoon and evening. However, the only thing that he truly found difficult to keep to was Signor Acuto's demand that he stop eating Bocconotti for good. He had lived with eating those cream puffs for so long it was hard to imagine life without them. There were a lot of good memories associated with the cream puffs and he often ate them whenever he felt stressed.

"It's been my feeling that those things aren't good for anyone," he squinted at Ezio critically. "Not especially anyone aspiring to learn my Art or trying to impress the ladies. You would be far better without them. And far slimmer too… remember, ladies like men with broad shoulders and a defined waist like on the old Roman statues, and not a large gentleman with spindy legs and a wobbly middle."

Oddly, enough, for a gentleman without a wife, Signor Acuto seemed quite insistent on what women liked. He often dispensed axioms of wisdom to the young man about women and life in general.

"No matter what they say, all women like their men to be strong and able to defend them," he remarked one evening while Ezio hauled a giant plank up to the dilapidated roof. "and especially so in these uncertain times…."

Despite his rather patriarchal views on women and their role, the young man decided that for the amount he was paying this mercenary, he had to make the best effort he could muster, and so stopped eating the puffs altogether. It was quite difficult for him in the first 3 days, but after that, it started to get better. Mostly because every time he stopped by a Boconotti store from force of habit, Lucia or some random courtesan would come up to him and smack him with her fan.

After that, he stopped because of the humiliation. Thanks to the courtesan grapevine, now every other lady-of-the-night knew about his "issues".

In addition to hauling stuff around for Signor Acuto, Ezio worked out a plan to invest a portion of his own savings in a small business. To Lucia's amazement, he approached the old matron at Lucia's bordello to buy over her business. He then put Lucia in charge of the place and invested money to repair and upgrade the old old bordello. He reasoned that the cash from the business would help to pay off his debt to Signor Acuto, because he was never going to be able to afford a condottiere's salary unless he either had money of his own or stole it from someone, and brothels never went out of business.

"Now, I…. should have gotten myself a banker years ago," one of the ladies of the brothel remarked at the changes that were taking place.

As one of the conditions of buying over the business, he took Lucia aside and said to her, "I don't want you seeing any more OTHER "customers"."

"I don't see how YOU have any say over what I do," the courtesan remarked. "We don't even KNOW each other."

"Well…. I'm your OWNER!" he exclaimed.

"Well, you are starting to sound like Vieri!" she retorted. "At least he's forced himself on me a few times…YOU on the other hand, don't have any idea what you've bought!"

Now he really felt like stabbing Vieri in the face.

"Well, I'm trying my best to make a decent woman out of you!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, so…. I'm not good enough for you?" she really didn't like how this whole argument was turning out.

"Well, since you see fit to try to make me into something I'm not…. I don't see why I can't do the same to you!"

"I'm trying to save your stupid life!" she shouted back.

"I don't see why you should care about what happens to me…" he shot back.

She threw herarms around him and placed her head on his chest. "You STUPID, HELPLESS BOY!" she exclaimed.

He really couldn't continue the argument any further with her body drawn so close to him. He pulled her close and buried his face in her hair, "I really can't bear the thought of you in the arms of another man…. I guess I just want you for myself alone…"

Lucia rolled her eyes, "If you really want me this much, then why try desperately to hide yourself from me?" she pulled at the opening of his big coat. "Come to me, let me see you as you are…."

"No…." he pulled the coat tightly around himself. His face was red as a beet.

"Well, what's wrong?" there was a huge frown on her face. "Silly boy, you don't have to care about what I think.. no man ever does…."

"Well, they should," he said. "YOU are the most beautiful woman in this city."

* * *

><p>On his part, all the hard work he did on Signor Acuto's house paid off in ways that Ezio did not anticipate. After awhile, he found himself shrinking. His round tummy receeded and he felt lighter on the whole. He also found new bulges on his arms that had never existed before.<p>

"Finally," the old condotteriere remarked one evening. "You are starting to look like a man."

Ezio never worked so hard in his life. Signor Acuto had loads of junk in his basement, from his years as an active condottiere. There were boxes of armour, and stacks upon stacks of random stuff he had collected in his own travels throughout Italia and to lands beyond, such was the life of a mercenary soldier. Ezio was amazed by the curios that popped out from every trunk and shelf. There was even a strange weapon that Signor Acuto said he took off an assailant who tried to murder him in the dead of the night. It was a blade worn on the inner arm that could be extended and retracted with e flick of the wrist. He asked the old soldier how it might be used in a fight, but Acuto gave him a grim answer.

"It is a murderer's weapon," he remarked. "Leave it be."

Signor Acuto did not spend much time teaching Ezio about weapons, he focused mostly on striking and grappling a man, especially the laws that ruled the human body and how by knowing those laws, a man could overcome a much more powerful opponent.

"Try to take your opponent down as fast as possible," Signor Acuto constantly reminded him. "The longer you draw out a fight, the higher the chance of you losing that fight…you should ideally have your enemy down on his back in a matter of moments. Take his weapon from him and strike him with it."

Most of Signor Acuto's techniques sounded frankly rather dishonorable to Ezio.

"If you suspect that someone is going to draw his dagger against you, you should seize the initiative and take action against him first," the old soldier said to him one evening.

"That's rather dishonourable," the young man remarked.

"Well, honour be damned!" the older man swore. "Fighting is all about survival. There is no honour in having your face cut in half. We live in dangerous times. A man could get killed and not know why it happened."

He flipped out a dagger suddenly and swung it at Ezio, stopping the blade an inch from the young man's face. "If you wait for the enemy to draw his weapon, there will always be a chance that you might not be able to stop the blade from hitting you on time. I didn't manage to survive to his age without a single scar on my face by waiting for my enemy to act. You need to keep your eyes open, observe your surroundings, read those you come across. If you see a man who seems too nervous and he's about to reach for a weapon, seize him by the hand, hit his chin in the manner I taught you and throw his head down to the ground like a hammer hitting an anvil. That should crack his skull open in a nasty place. Do this with speed and without hesitation. And you will live."

"Speaking about daggers, what about other weapons? I mean, what about this?" he grasped at a sword from a rack of weapons nearby. It frankly felt a lot heavier than it looked.

"There is no need for you to know much about weapons," Signor Acuto remarked. "Warfare is not your chosen profession."

Despite being a good student throughout his life, Ezio found the lessons incredibly hard. Firstly, he was not as physically strong or fast or tough as Signor Acuto. Secondly, anything that had to do with physical movement was almost alien to him. He stumbled around like a drunk after a long night of drinking. Strangely enough, the old condottiere's remedy to Ezio's shortcomings was to send him up the roof for more repairs or have him hauling around really large and heavy pieces of wood.

"What are you going to do when you have a family and it gets cold and you need logs?" he once remarked when Ezio struggled with a large log.

When it got closer to Christmas, he had Ezio chop tons of logs for the fireplace. Amazingly, the young man found that splitting a log was harder than it looked. Although the old soldier demonstrated the technique to him a dozen times, Ezio found that he was unable to split the logs evenly even though he mimicked his teacher's every move.

"By the saints!" the old soldier remarked. "I've never known a man who cannot split a log!"

"You must have the willpower of a woman," he remarked after Ezio's penultimate failed attempt at log splitting. "You need to focus on splitting the log with a single swing. It's all about bringing it down fast at the right angle and pulling the handle strongly with your left hand. There must be no hesitation in your mind… I don't understand why you keep hesitating… it's like you are too afraid to split the thing in half…. What on earth is wrong with you?"

Ezio never mastered log splitting but Signor Acuto got a lot of logs out of him for the fireplace, which were misshapen for the most part.

By the end of the first few weeks, Ezio had been struck and flipped to the ground so many times, he frankly felt rather demoralized. However, he kept going back because Lucia seemed rather pleased by the whole affair. In fact, she sometimes visited them when they were training. She never stopped smiling no matter how many times Signor Acuto flipped him onto the ground or twisted his arm around rather painfully. Ezio suspected that she only came by to watch because that was the one time he was forced to take off everything apart from his shirt, pants and shoes.

Ezio was surprised that Signor Acuto never asked him about his impending trial or about the whole incident involving himself and his friend Leonardo. The old soldier seemed far more interested in asking him questions about his family, and about his father in particular.

"So your father has never struck a man before, not even in anger?"

"No. Not that I've ever seen," Ezio replied. "He is the gentlest man I know. He would rather settle any argument with words than with fists."

"So he looks a lot like you," the old soldier prodded Ezio's slightly protruding tummy.

Ezio drew back a bit. The questions were getting a tad uncomfortable, "No not really…. I mean… in terms of appearance," he made a circular motion with his hand around his face. "I look like him. In terms of stature, I think he looks a lot more like my brother Federico."

"Who taught your brother how to climb and run around the rooftops?"

Ezio was rather surprised by the question.

"I mean," the old soldier remarked. "It's quite hard not to notice a tall young man clambering up the side of walls and running around the rooftops, sometimes even my old roof. And moreover, your brother does have a distinctive appearance."

"No one taught him anything. It's just something Federico does."

"And YOU don't?"

"I don't like heights."

"So how were you able to get up and mend my roof?" Signor Acuto wondered.

"With great difficulty. And by gritting my teeth and not looking down."

One weekend, Signor Acuto surprised Ezio by walking almost directly into him as he was getting out of the front door of the Auditore home. The young man stared at him in stunned silence as he walked through the archway and into the courtyard.

"I have a meeting with your father," he calmly remarked.

Almost on cue, Giovanni came out of the door that led to his office an greeted the old soldier. As they clasped hands, Signor Acuto looked directly into the banker's eyes, almost as if he were sizing up an opponent. Ezio half expected his father to look away, the old soldier had a gaze that could pierce iron. But amazingly, the banker merely blinked.

"Come on in out of the cold, Signor Acuto," Giovanni patted him on the shoulder. "We are glad to be able to do business with you."

Worried that his secret might get out, Ezio frequently wandered past the office door, peeking in occasionally to see what the two men were talking about. Finally, after seeing Ezio passing by the door for what must be the nineth time, Giovanni called him in.

"Have you met my son, Ezio?"

"Pleased to meet you, Signor Acuto," Ezio held out a pale, little hand rather limply, as he usually did at work. However, he stared at the old soldier as firmly as he could, willing that his unspoken message would reach the man.

"Piero Acuto," the old soldier seemed to have gotten his unspoken message and reached out to shake his hand with an almost crushing grip.

When the old soldier left, Giovanni turned to his son, "Ezio, do you know this man?"

"No. Papa," Ezio silently prayed that his face would not betray him. "Who is he?"

"Really? You have no idea who he is? I thought that his name was a dead giveaway."

Ezio silently cursed. Almost every Florentine knew about the Acuto family. His father was now looking at him rather oddly.

"You are SURE you don't know him."

"No."

* * *

><p>Quite naturally, Signor Acuto confronted Ezio about the whole incident the next time they met.<p>

"So your father has no idea at all that you are learning from me."

"No."

"Does your father know what happened between you and Vieri?"

"No."

He put an arm on Ezio's shoulder, "You know, things might be easier for you if you said something to your family."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Father … he isn't a fighting man," the young man explained. "I think he would die if he knew I got into any kind of fight. He doesn't like violence."

This time it was Signor Acuto's turn to look at Ezio oddly.

"One day, Ezio, you need to sit down with your father and have a good, long talk."

"Why are you so interested in my family?"

Signor Acuto stared at the young man.

"Why, I would have thought that the reason would be obvious. You, Ezio, are related to Mario Auditore, a man who is in the same profession as am I. Now, in my world at least, a condottiere's martial skills are his life. And not all condottieri know what I know. However, many would like to have knowledge of my Art. Although over the years I've been asked by many young noblemen to impart my skills to them, I've thus far refused all, because I would not like to see someone using my own skills against me."

"So why did you agree to teach me?"

"Because none of those who have ever asked me would risk their life for a courtesean. None of them are in fear for their life because of something right they did."


	9. At the End of 1475

_**Disclaimer:**__I do not own Ezio or any other mentioned Assassin's Creed characters, they are the property of Ubisoft. As for the historical characters mentioned… well.. I guess they belong to history… or themselves…_

_2012 was a terribly busy year for me... I had wanted to update sooner, but I was kept busy writing research papers... yep... my life radically changed over the last year or so. So has my viewpoint on a whole lot of things, including historical notions of the Assassin group. I am still a fan of the games... and the character... but I think what I have learned in 2012 might leak over into the story, so if you see something you do not agree with, just let me know and I'll explain it._

_**Warning: **__There is a lemon in this chapter, if you do not like it, or if it offends you, I suggest you skip this chapter. The story has been rated M, so you know there will be graphic violence and other stuff._

_**Author Notes:**__  
>Well, I guess it's about time to get on with the rest of the story… so onward… with 1476, the dreaded sodomy trial and other stuff….<em>

_Cut-throat – oddly enough… the Italian word for this is might be translated as "assassino" (according to the babylon translator) and "Tagliagole" (according to some other translator)…. This is important to know at least in the context of what you are about to read._

* * *

><p>Sometime at the end of December, the old soldier got Lucia to bring Ezio down to where the tailors were.<p>

"Make sure you get him to get himself something that looks like what a young fellow would wear. And not what his father would walk around in," the old soldier remarked.

At the end of an afternoon at the tailors', Ezio left it dressed in a pair of high boots, tight pants that reminded him more of a hose than the loose trousers he was used to, a shirt with poofy sleeves and a short, body-hugging doublet that made him feel exposed. Since he was 13 he had always worn a large coat, so no one could see his large middle and spindy legs. He was surprised that he could even fit one of those tiny, sleeveless vests. Unlike most of his own clothes, the new clothes he got were made of rough material and Lucia got him an equally rustic-looking cloak with a deep hood to match.

'"I like how you look," Lucia threw her arms around Ezio and looked into his eyes. "Now remember, no matter where Signor Acuto brings you, you are NOT to bring home another lady! You already have one here that you have not yet satisfied!"

Signor Acuto seemed to like what Lucia had done with Ezio's general appearance. The only change that he made to it was to get the young man to tie his hair back with a piece of ribbon.

"You're not a blushing virgin!" he remarked. "You don't need hair falling over your face like a veil!"

On the last day of December, he brought Ezio to a tavern near one of the marketplaces. The place was dimly lit with a cloud of smoke that hung like a mist in the air. The crowd in general seemed to consist of off-duty guardsmen and soldier-types.

"Now, no matter what happens, just remember to keep moving around and do not stay still," Signor Acuto advised.

Soon enough, a drunken customer stumbled unsteadily along the bar and knocked into another fellow, spilling his drink. The fellow struck him in the face in retaliation and the drunken man fell. Then some of his friends got up and confronted the fellow with the spilled drink… and soon enough, everyone in the bar was taking a swing at everyone else. Several of the customers tried to take a few pot shots at Ezio, but the young man dodged their blows or otherwise blocked them as he had been instructed. Soon, in the chaos, he found himself trying to fend off 3- 4 men who were so drunk they seemed unable to tell friend from foe.

As soon as the owner alerted the town guard who were on night duty, Signor Acuto and Ezio ran out of the place. Despite his best efforts, someone managed to land a fist on one side of his face, resulting in a perfect shiner on his left eye.

They did not stop running until they were back at Signor Acuto's house.

"Not too bad, although you still have much to learn," the old soldier remarked after examining Ezio. "Although I figure you could take a few blows in a fist fight, a blow could be lethal if someone was trying his best to kill you. You should aim to not be struck at all."

To his amazement, Lucia was in the parlour of the Acuto home waiting for them.

"I thought something like this might happen," the courtesan remarked as they entered the door. "Ezio, are you alright?"

"Shaken but not on the floor of the tavern," the old soldier replied. "I daresay he can defend himself somewhat but I'm not too sure if he can deal Vieri and his friends any true harm."

"Did I not say that he would be a good student?" the courtesan remarked.

"He has done sufficiently well," the old soldier smiled.

Lucia went over to the young man and whispered, "Do you know of anyplace where we can speak in private where no one will disturb us?"

Ezio led her though the cold December streets back to a house that she found tremendously familiar; in fact, it was the house that was opposite the fishmonger.

"Isn't your family in?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes, but follow me," he replied. He led her to a side of the house where there was an almost hidden enterence. Opening it, he led her up the narrow stairs to a balcony with a ladder to the roof. At the top was a flat roof with a pigeon coop and a small stack of hay.

'No one comes up here except for my little brother whose room is below. But he seldom comes up because he is always sick and has to stay in bed," he explained.

In the clear moonlight, Lucia drew close to Ezio and placed her small hands on his face.

"Is it painful?" she asked, touching the shiner.

Ezio tried to turn his face away so that she would not be looking directly at the scar on his mouth.

"No, don't turn away," she said, touching the scar. "You don't know just how good-looking you are."

She kissed his lips directly where the scar was.

The sensation caused a tingle that originated in his lips and spread throughout his entire body. He returned her kiss eagerly, tasting the sweetness of her rosebud lips.

She slid her hand down his pants and fondled him gently. Unused to the sensation, he almost pulled away from her.

"Oh no you don't!" she chided. " You aren't getting away from me again….. I've wanted to know you since that day when we were hiding in my room."

Feeling him harden, she pushed him down on the pile of hay and pulled down his pants. Then, spreading her thighs, she went down on him slowly. The pleasure he felt was indescribable. His stomach muscles clenched tightly and his body started to spasm in odd places. As she ground down on him, so that he was now deep inside of her, he found himself making all kinds of strange sounds, they broke though the calm of the silent night and somewhere in Ezio's mind, he hoped that no one in the house below was awakened because of all the grunting and panting.

Instinctively, his hips began to move and he started thrusting upwards into her, so that she rose lightly through the air almost like a bobbing ballerina. As he saw a look of surprise in her face, he wondered if he was doing the right thing. However, his unspoken question was answered when her inner muscles began tightly clenching onto him tightly and she opened her mouth, almost as if to scream, but there was no sound. Like perfectly paired dancers in an ancient dance, they seemed to move in unity, although no words passed between them, it was as though each knew exactly what to do at each turn. Then, like a star being born, Ezio felt something explode inside of him and there was a release and a warmth that flooded his entire body.

She leaned forward, her hands stoking his broad, firm chest, and kissed him again. When their lips parted, the sun rose on 1476.

In the feeble rays of the New Year sun, Ezio realized that his underside was starting to feel rather cold from lying on the roof as long as he did, and that two little brown eyes were peeking over the side of the roof at the both of them.

"Oh my god!" the young man exclaimed. Lucia moved so fast she got off Ezio and tried to hide behind him in a single swift motion. He scrambled to try and pull some hay over his naked bits.

"What on earth are you doing up here at this hour, Petuccio?!" his older brother yelled.

"It was quite noisy and I could not sleep, so I came up here to see what was making all the noise," his little brother replied with a wide-eyed innocent expression. "What were you both doing? Are you hurting my brother? He was gasping for air like a fish…." he directed his question at Lucia.

Before she could give a reply, Ezio swiftly interjected, "NO! We were NOT doing anything!"

"You're lying! Just like every other time you've been home late this year! Just like you lied to papa on that night when papa was taking to Federico about that Vieri person! You're doing something bad…. I'm gonna tell mama!" he disappeared swiftly from the edge.

Although he felt like running down into the house to stop his little brother, he took a moment to wrap the cloak around Lucia and show her the way down before making a mad dash into the house. He stopped by his room for a minute to throw on his big coat before running down the hallway to the dining room where he saw the small shape of his brother disappearing past the heavy wooden doors.

Running as fast as he could, he threw the doors open with a huge crash and stared into the faces of his entire family as they were having breakfast. Petuccio was sitting on his father's lap.

"Ezio. Where have you been all night, son?" his father's voice was unusually grave.

"Nowhere… papa," he gritted his teeth. His eyes shifted around the room from side to side.

"He's lying again!" the voice of his little brother chimed in. "He was up on the roof late last night with a lady and they were going …. Aaaahhhh! Aaaaaaahhhh!"

Ezio turned beet red before he started staring at the floor.

"Where is this lady? Why don't you ask her to come down and join us?" oddly enough his mother was smiling.

"There is NO LADY!" he muttered. " Petuccio was probably too tired and imagined it."

"Liar!" Petuccio's voice was much louder than it had ever been. "He's always lying, just like that night when Federico came in late and you were all talking about that Vieri person! He stayed up half the night crying and then before you all woke up, he went downstairs to the washing area and was furiously scrubbing the lace on his sleeves!"

There was a long pause and Ezio found tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. He stubbornly kept his gaze on the floor.

"Petuccio's got a wonderful imagination… What? Ezio's actually up on a rooftop?!" there was a look of disbelief in Federico's eyes. "The next thing you'll be telling me… little brother, is that our Ezio here is a mild-mannered banker by day and a deadly cut-throat by night…"

Silence.

The hush was so profound it would have shattered steel. Ezio however noticed nothing and merely breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ahem…" Giovanni cleared his throat nervously. "That's quite enough… Ezio, come over here and sit down." He pointed at a chair next to him. He took the chance during breakfast to look at his pallid younger son a little more closely.

The first thing he noticed was the obvious shiner on the left eye and the redness on his knuckles. The baby fat that was so much a feature on Ezio's face seemed to have receded a little so that a distinctive-looking chin was starting to show. And there was that look in his eyes, a haunted look at Giovanni knew quite well. The look of a man hunted.


End file.
